NHER 5800 (Find Spot record) - Two Palaeolithic handaxes and pottery of uncertain date

Pre June 1870. Stray Find.
Palaeolithic flint implements "…found in pits at Milford bridge, Thetford" were exhibited at a meeting of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society by Mr Fitch on 12 June 1870 (S1). Pottery, described as 'apparently British', was also found in the pits.

These finds almost certaintly came from one of the gravel pits that lay on the Brettenham side of the Melford bridge. The most likely candidate is a large pit that can be seen close to the road on the 1st Edition O.S. map and the record has been mapped on this basis (moving it slightly from its previous position at TL 879 828). It should however be noted that there appears to have been another large pit a little to the east, at TL 880 828.

Two Palaeolithic implements from this site are part of The Norwich Castle Museum's Fitch Collection (NWHCM : 1894.76.925-926). These are recorded by (S2) as two "Group III" objects (a handaxe and a "white ovate") and are listed as handaxes in (S3). One of these handaxe is described as a finely-made cordate handaxe on (S4) and in (S5). These finds were also noted in (S6) and (S7). All of the above sources incorrectly place this site in Thetford parish.

The Palaeolithic finds from this site were also noted in (S8), which records that material from this site was held by both the Norwich Castle Museum and what is now the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The nature of the material that went to the latter is not known - no material from this site could be identified in the museum's current records.
H. Hamilton (NLA), 16 July 2008. Amended and expanded by P. Watkins (HES), 6 May 2013.