NHER 55476 (Monument record) - Probable medieval to post medieval common-edge settlement at Lower Grove Farm

March 2010. Earthwork survey.
The site is in a small field, under pasture and currently used for grazing horses. It comprises a number of substantial ditches and banks, some of the former water-filled, which run roughly northeast to southwest, back at right angles from the eastern boundary of the field. As the latter was (until the enclosure of Wymondham in 1810) the edge of a common, the earthworks evidently represent a number of medieval house sites and associated fields. Traces of a north-south ‘hollow way’ are also present, towards the north of the site, as well as other minor banks and depressions of uncertain significance but clearly related to the settlement. This is an archaeological site of some importance, given the comparative paucity of medieval settlement earthworks in this intensively arable area. The complex is in good condition, for the most part, although some of the banks are being eroded by the horses.
See (S1).
S. Howard (HES), 3 May 2011.

June 2011. Norfolk NMP.
The earthworks described above, interpreted as the remains of a medieval common-edge settlement, are visible on aerial photographs (S2)-(S7), centred at TG 1244 0364. The NMP mapping largely confirms the plan recorded by the earthwork survey (S1) but adds further detail for the north-eastern corner of the site where the earthworks have been levelled. The earthworks seem largely to represent enclosures, perhaps paddocks, and no obvious building platforms or tofts could be identified; the postulated hollow way at the northern end of the site is visible but there is little to confirm or dismiss this interpretation of the feature, which might simply be a track or a substantial drain or boundary.
While there seems little reason to dismiss the interpretation of the earthworks given above as the remains of a medieval common-edge settlement, the possibility of other, more mundane and perhaps later origins for all or some of the features should be borne in mind. Examination of aerial photographs for the wider area reveals a significant number of similar earthworks and cropmarks relating to drainage and enclosure which are of relatively recent origin and/or of negligible archaeological significance (and which consequently have not been mapped by the NMP). At the same time, the site here does exhibit a greater level of complexity than is generally seen, and bears a strong similarity to the earthworks of another probable medieval to post medieval common-edge settlement mapped less than 2km to the north (NHER 35521). Certainly, this area is shown as part of Great Melton Common on Faden’s 1797 Map of Norfolk (S8) and the earthworks represent an unusual survival.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 7 June 2011.

September-October 2019. Geophysical Survey.
Magnetometer survey of parcels of land to east of access track (Area 4).
This survey identified two short linear anomalies that were potentially of archaeological interest but no evidence for surviving remains associated with the previously recorded cropmarks.
Information from draft report. Final version awaited.
P. Watkins (HES), 10 February 2021.