NHER 49435 (Monument record) - Possible industrial site of unknown date on Burgh Common

May 2007. Norfolk NMP.
A series of interlinked pits or ponds, with a number of smaller detached elements, are visible as earthworks on aerial photographs (S1)-(S3), centred at TG 4409 1269. Their purpose and date is not known, but their position on wet common in close proximity to Muck Fleet suggests that water was being utilised. They could perhaps have been used as fishponds, but they do not resemble any such ponds mapped elsewhere in Norfolk. They might represent peat cutting, the Trinity Broad system lying little over 500m to their east, but they are rather irregular and there is no evidence of peat deposits here. An industrial use, for retting or a similar processing activity, seems more plausible. The features are relatively well defined on the aerial photographs and a post medieval date for their construction seems probable.

It should be noted that the pits could continue into the field to the east, but here the vegetation pattern looks more natural than man-made. Similarly, further pits could exist within the limits of the site, but again these cannot be distinguished from natural features. Conversely, some of the mapped pits, particularly the smaller detached examples, may not be of archaeological significance.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 24 May 2007.