NHER 50646 (Cropmark and Earthwork record) - Bronze Age round barrow cemetery

October 2007. Norfolk NMP.
A group of round barrows are visible on aerial photographs of the Warren, Lenwade, indicating the presence of a Bronze Age round barrow cemetery (NHER 7718, 7729-30, 40622) (S1-S7). The site is centred on TG 1138 1804. The cemetery is positioned to the immediate south of the River Wensum, possibly on the edge of the river terrace and base of the valley side. Only one of these barrows still exists as an earthwork (NHER 7718), a penannular bank (NHER 7730) also still surviving could also indicate another former barrow site. This positioning of valley side and terrace edge is mirrored by another barrow group approximately 6km to the east at Sparham (NHER 30639). These barrows at Lenwade are likely to have originally formed part of a dispersed cemetery (NHER 7728) said to have contained up to eleven barrows on Morton Common (exact location unknown).

A Neolithic oval barrow may underlie one of these barrows (NHER 7718), possibly suggesting the cemetery developed in the Bronze Age around an earlier monument dating to the Neolithic. Further fieldwork would be needed to ascertain the date and relationship of the mounds.
S. Massey (NMP), 22 October 2007.