NHER 57995 (Cropmark and Earthwork record) - Vegetation marks of probable former medieval to post medieval land divisions

August 2012.
Vegetation marks which appear to relate to underlying ditches and former field boundaries, mostly of probable medieval to post medieval date, are visible on aerial photographs within the central and northern part of Coltishall airfield (S1-S3). The site is centred on TG 2677 2287. Many of the vegetation marks that are clearly visible within the main area of the airfield quite clearly relate the medieval to post medieval boundaries and tracks that were removed for the airfield to be built, as are depicted on the 1766 'Map book of the estates of Davy Durrant of Scottow’ (S4), the 1828 Scottow Enclosure map (S5) and the 1839 Scottow Tithe map (S5), the most significant area being the former farm buildings and boundaries around Batley Green.
As with any NMP survey, boundaries or features visible on the aerial photographs that are well recorded on the available historic maps were omitted from the mapping. It is therefore essential that the mapped features should be viewed against the historic map background to gain a full understanding of the aerial photograph derived evidence. For example the arrangement of parallel ditches recorded at TG 2720 2330 when viewed in isolation may have the appearance of part of a double-ditched enclosure, however when viewed against the 1828 Scottow Enclosure Map it is clearly forming part of depicted field pattern. In this case potentially forming part of a trackway running through alongside a long contiguous line of field edges and perhaps fossilised in the field pattern to the north on the 1828 Enclosure map.
The majority of the features mapped would appear to represent minor former divisions and boundaries within the medieval to post medieval fields and land allotments depicted on the historic maps, see for example TG 2681 2315 and TG 2678 2259. Given the nature of the land use since its to the conversion of the site to the airfield, it is feasible that some quite minor and temporary features, such as fence lines, paddocks and even former cultivation strips, could have been showing as faint vegetation marks on the aerial photographs.
All of the features mapped were identified from relatively faint vegetations marks visible in either 1999, 2006 and 2007 (S1-S3). The fact that these features appear to be showing as ditch-like features on grass and rough vegetation within a recently active airfield, means that further work would be needed to establish if these do relate to actual archaeological features. However the fact that some of these linear vegetation marks correlate with features depicted on historic maps, it seems likely that the other marks showing similarly may also relate to underlying ditch-like features. Whilst the majority of the features recorded within this site are felt to be of probable medieval or post medieval date, see TG 2681 2315 where a few of the ditches do not follow the dominant alignment of the medieval to post medieval field pattern and therefore could relate to pre-medieval features. It is also worth noting that some of these features could not confidently be distinguished from recent tracks in the surface vegetation, but due to their similarity to other seemingly archaeological features, they were included in the mapping.
S. Horlock (HES), 30 August 2012.