NHER 63055 (Cropmark and Earthwork record) - Undated banks and ditches which may relate to the former medieval settlement at Didlington.

The features described below were previously recorded as part of NHER 11758. See NHER 11758 for further details.

November 2018. Breckland National Mapping Programme.
Undated earthwork bank and ditches, which may relate to possible former medieval settlement remains (NHER 11758), are visible on aerial photographs (S1-S5). The earthworks have since been levelled and are now visible as cropmarks. The earthworks visible on the 1940s aerial photographs showed differently between the runs of air photos and were inconsistent with the later cropmark evidence from the 1970s (S5). The decision was made where earthwork and cropmark data was inconsistent, the cropmarks were mapped as they were clearer and provided the most useful information in this case. The large approximate east – west banks and ditches may have related to former fields, land division, boundaries or drainage associated with the possible deserted medieval village of Didlington (NHER 11758). Equally, these features may have been associated with tree planting in the parkland around Didlington Hall (NHER 40234 and NHER 4821). The evidence for tree planting could be suggested from the alignment of the east – west bank and ditches with the lines of trees on the First and Second Edition Ordnance Survey maps (S6-S7) and 1940s air photos (S1-S2). At TL 7777 9729 there is a mound with a depression in the centre and an area of small banks which may relate to the possible medieval settlement remains or the parkland landscape. This area has seen a large amount of landscape change and further work is required to understand the relationship between the features, the possible medieval settlement remains and the Didlington Park landscape.
J.Powell (Norfolk Historic Environment Service), 9 November 2018.