NHER 60626 (Monument record) - Medieval to post-medieval features and multi-period finds

January 1995. Trial Trenching.
Evaluation of proposed development site.
Two trenches were excavated, one at the northern end of the site and one at the southern end.
The northern trench revealed a group of cess pits of probable medieval to post-medieval date. The better dated examples included a pit that produced sherds of late medieval pottery and a (?intrusive) coin of early 17th-century date, and one that contained a range of post-medieval finds (including fragments of 18th-century bottle glass). These features were overlain by several extensive layers of chalk and other material that had presumably been deliberately lain down to seal the waste material contained within the pits. Two of the pits were truncated by a ditch that appeared to be cut from a high level and was therefore probably of a much more recent date. The only other feature recorded in this trench was a post-hole that contained a sherd of possible Roman pottery. Two residual sherds of Roman pottery were also recovered from the cess pits.
The southern trench revealed a probable north-to-south aligned ditch but rapidly became waterlogged, preventing any further excavation.
Unstratified finds were limited to a small number of ?Roman, medieval and post-medieval pottery sherds.
See report (S1) for further details. The results of this work are also summarised in (S2) and (S3).
An archive associated with this work has been deposited with Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2022.157).
Previously recorded under NHER 15289.
E. Rose (NLA), 2 June 1995. Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 12 March 2015 and 20 February 2023.

June-July 2019. Excavation.
This second phase of work took place following the demolition of several buildings and saw the excavation of two relatively small areas in the northern half of the site, close to one of the two trenches excavated in 1995. A range of linear and discrete features were exposed, the bulk of which were of probable medieval or later date.
The limited evidence for earlier activity on the site included three Neolithic flint flakes and a small assemblage of Roman pottery. The bulk of the Roman pottery was residual within features that could be identified as most likely medieval on either stratigraphic or artefactual grounds. One possible exception was a single Roman sherd recovered from an otherwise undated post-hole in the southern excavation area. This and a number of other, undated post-holes in the vicinity potentially represented the remains of some form structure. Environmental sampling also provided further possible evidence for Roman-period activity on the site (see below).
The pottery recovered suggests that many of the excavated features were associated with the medieval phase of activity. Potentially medieval remains include a range of discrete features, the majority of which are though to have been extraction pits. Finds recovered from these features included medieval pottery sherds, several pieces of probable daub, fragments of animal bone and oyster shells.
A group of intercutting north-to-south aligned ditches were presumably associated with a fairly significant boundary that had been re-established on a number of occasions. The latest ditch in the sequence produced one of the site's most diverse and substantial finds assemblage, which comprised a small number of residual Late Saxon and Saxo-Norman pottery sherds, medieval pottery, a large assemblage of animal bone, numerous oyster shells, an iron nail and fragments of possible metal-working debris. The animal bone assemblage comprises the remains of a wide variety of domestic and wide species, with a particularly notable inclusion being the butchered bones of Common Crane – which was considered to be a luxury item until the species was driven to extinction in the earlier part of the post-medieval period.
Samples taken from the features of probable medieval date were found to contain hulled barley, free-threshing wheat, oat and rye, all of which are typical of the period. Grains and chaff of glume wheat, were though also widely identified, which are infrequent in medieval contexts and therefore may represent debris from earlier activity. A particularly notable assemblage likely to represent a dump of carbonised remains came from a pit that was undated apart from a single Roman pottery sherd (although stratigraphic evidence suggested a medieval date). This assemblage was dominated by glume wheat and hulled barley, with some free-threshing wheat and a grain of rye also present, along with a small number of oats (although these may represent arable weeds rather than crops). Overall this assemblage is much more consistent with a Roman date. The dominance of chaff elements and other characteristics of this material suggest that it may represent corn drier waste, which was potentially being used as a fuel for other processes.
Although a number of features also produced small fragments of post-medieval brick and modern pantile none could be convincingly identified as being associated with post-medieval activity (the complete absence of post-medieval pottery being particularly notable).
Information from draft report. Final version and published article awaited.
An archive associated with this work has been deposited with Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2020.154).
P. Watkins (HES), 20 February 2023.