NHER 4950 (Find Spot record) - Palaeolithic handaxe

8 August 1917. Stray Find.
Found by F. N. Haward at "top end of Middle Breck":
1 Palaeolithic implement. Donated to Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 1947.33.10).
Information from (S1) and museum records.
It appears that this object was found on the same day as another handaxe was recovered from a nearby gravel pit (NHER 58794).

This implement is listed as a handaxe in (S2) and is briefly described on (S3). It is one of the eight handaxes in the NCM mentioned in (S4) and is also noted in (S5) and (S6). It should be noted that (S5) and (S6) treat NHER 4950 and NHER 58794 as the same site.

The mapped extent of this record was previously centred on TL 776 930, however it is clear from the late 19th- and early 20th-century cartographic sources that Middle Breck previously extended much further to the north (the field boundary that this record was placed against being a much more recent addition). A large gravel pit is also shown in the area that was previously the top end of Middle Breck and this is therefore a likely source of this object. The area was visited by Wymer in October 1995 who recorded an overgrown shallow pit within a Forestry Commission plantation (S3) as the probable source of this find. The grid reference listed in (S6) does however suggests that Wymer was referring to a large pit in the central part of Middle Breck (NHER 61106).
P. Watkins (HES), 1 May 2013.