NHER 6741 (Cropmark and Earthwork record) - Site of Hares' Hill Bronze Age round barrow

Tumulus.
Marked on (S1). Southeast of NHER 6740.
10.9m (36ft) diameter, gutted, (J.E. Sainty).
No sign in ploughed field.
For sources and possible contents see NHER 6737.
A.J. Lawson (NAU), 2 February 1976.

February 2001. NLA visit.
No sign of barrow in pig farm.
See report and letters in file.
D. Gurney (NLA), 23 February 2001.

May 2004, Norfolk NMP.
NMP mapping has led to the alteration of the central grid reference of the site from TG 2253 3763 to TG 2255 3763.

The Bronze Age round barrow described above, which is depicted on historic maps (S1-2), is also visible as an earthwork on aerial photographs from 1946 (S3). It forms part of a postulated dispersed linear barrow cemetery (NHER 38632), and is one of a number of Bronze Age barrows identified on this area of former heathland. Ordnance Survey records indicate that it was excavated prior to 1905 (NMR TG 23 NW 7). G.J. Chester investigated 'a small tumulus near the Cromer and Norwich road', from which a small quantity of ashes and charcoal was recovered (S4). This is usually thought to refer to Nares Hill, 200m to the north-west, which is smaller and lies closer to the road, but there seems little reason to rule out Hares' Hill as an alternative location.

The barrow appears as a relatively high, circular earthwork mound measuring c. 13.5m in diameter on aerial photographs from 1946 (S3). A roughly circular depression, approximately 4m wide, is visible in the top of the mound, presumably the evidence of antiquarian investigation noted by the Ordnance Survey. An earthwork ditch may also just be visible on these photographs, but is more clearly visible as a cropmark on later aerial photographs (S5) where it can be seen as a continuous, slightly sub-circular ring ditch measuring 2.5m wide and 20m in diameter. An internal pit visible as a cropmark on the same photographs may represent a burial, but lies more or less below the depression described above and could equally be the base of an antiquarian excavation. The barrow appears to have been levelled prior to 1963 when it appears as a dark circular cropmark on aerial photographs (S6).
S. Tremlett (NMP), 21 May 2004.