NHER 53246 (Cropmark and Earthwork record) - Site of probable land boundaries of unknown date

December 2009. Norfolk NMP.
A series of boundary ditches and banks, perhaps incorporating one or more trackways, is visible as earthworks (presumed to have since been levelled), vegetation marks and ‘thaw’ marks (differences in the accumulation/thawing of snow) on aerial photographs (S1)-(S2), centred at TG 2083 0680. The date and function of the features is not clear, and they may not be of any great antiquity. The site falls within an area marked as ‘allotment gardens’ on the Ordnance Survey 2nd edition 25 inch map of 1902-7 (S3) and it is possible that the banks and ditches relate to the divisions and paths between allotment plots. Modern Ordnance Survey mapping and aerial photographs indicate that since the photographs were taken the site has been levelled (presumably) and partially built over.
The site appears to consist of six irregularly spaced ditches, aligned parallel to each other on a northwest-southeast orientation. The two central ditches are spaced only 2m apart and could represent a trackway. To the east, it is difficult to tell to what extent the mapped features are actual ditches rather than just flattened vegetation (through some kind of agricultural process?); the wider of these two ditches seems to be flanked by a bank on one side. All but the easternmost ditch (which does not extend far enough to the south) are crossed at a right-angle by two parallel banks spaced approximately 7m apart; of the two groups the banks appear to be later than the ditches. On the 1946 aerial photographs (S2) the eastern half of the site is also crossed by a narrow ‘ditch’ (not mapped) which appears to be a path of modern origin.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 4 December 2009.