NHER 5716 (Find Spot record) - Palaeolithic handaxe, Chisley Vale

1865. Stray Find.
The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford holds a Palaeolithic flint handaxe recorded as being found at 'Chaseley Vale', Thetford in 1865 (1892.67.150). This was donated to the museum by J. W. Flower.
Information from (S1).

This find was almost certainly from the area immediately to the east of the Little Ouse river that is known as Chisley Vale. A large number of Palaeolithic artefacts were recovered during quarrying along this stretch of the river during the second half of the 19th century, many of which were found by Flower himself. The mapped extent of this record indicates the area that has been marked on cartographic sources as Chisley Vale since at least the late 19th century (when it appears on the 1st Edition O.S map). It should however be noted that this find could well have come from one of the nearby quarry sites such as Red Hill to the south (NHER 5795) or White Hill, which probably lay to the north (NHER 5796).

This handaxe is listed separately in Roe's 1968 gazetteer (S2) and is briefly described on (S3) and in (S4). Wymer notes in (S4) that the sharp and frost-cracked condition of this object is unlike that of the handaxes from the nearby Red Hill site (NHER 5795). This find is also listed in (S5) and (S6), although no additional information is given.

P. Watkins (HES), 27 June 2013.