NHER 43463 (Monument record) - Undated drainage ditches and banks or trackways on Gapton Marshes

March 2006. Norfolk NMP.
Several banks and ditches are visible as earthworks and vegetation marks on aerial photographs (S1)-(S4), centred around TG 5013 0585. These are most likely to be drainage features: the ditches representing former drains, the banks marking the line of flood banks or levees, although some may have been used as trackways. They are generally sinuous or curvilinear in plan, perhaps reflecting an origin as natural saltmarsh creeks. The adaptation of natural channels is characteristic of early drainage schemes perhaps dating back to the medieval period (see Williamson (S5) pp 64-5). In the case of the features described here, a post medieval date seems more likely, as this area of land was wet common until it was enclosed by Act of Parliament (S6). The drains were presumably replaced in the 19th century by the rectilinear pattern of drainage depicted on historic (e.g. (S7)) and modern maps.

It should be noted that it was frequently difficult to distinguish between man-made, archaeological features and the earthworks and vegetation marks of natural drainage features. Some of the mapped features may not be of archaeological significance, while some unmapped features could have been man-made. Many were perhaps the product of both human and natural agency. For example, the linear bank, visible between TG 5001 0582 and TG 5012 0587, has the appearance of a man-made feature, but a possible continuation into the field to the east looks more natural in origin and is overlain by the forked, sinuous bank mapped within this field. The bank and ditch mapped in the field adjacent to the west are also of doubtful archaeological origin. The ditch may have continued into the field to the southwest, where it perhaps joined to other disused drains. Some of the mapped features may still survive as earthworks.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 31 March 2006.