NHER 65073 (Monument) - Undated pits and possible ditches

April 2014. Geophysical Survey.
Geophysical survey of part of large proposed development area (Field 8).
No potentially archaeologically-significant responses were recorded at this location.
Various weak discrete anomalies are thought to probably represent naturally silted hollows or variations in topsoil depth.
Information from report uploaded to OASIS. HER copy awaited.
P. Watkins (HES), 8 June 2021.

January-February 2022. Trial Trenching.
Evaluation of part of large proposed development site (Trenches 41-52).
The 12 trenches excavated at this location revealed several pits and two possible ditches, none of which produced any dating evidence.
Three pits with black, charcoal-rich primary fills and heat-scorched margins were very similar to a number of features recorded at the site to the east (NHER 61657). Samples from their fills contained abundant charcoal (identified as being predominantly from oak heartwood) but little else in the way of charred plant macrofossils or other debris. This evidence, plus the absence of finds, strongly suggests that most, if not, all of these pits were associated with small-scale charcoal production. Similar features have now been recorded at numerous sites in the Norwich environs, with radiocarbon dating suggesting that the majority were associated with Middle to Late Saxon and medieval industries. It should though be noted that charcoal from one of the pits excavated to the east returned a Middle/Late Iron Age date. A second was though found to be of Early/Middle Saxon date and therefore likely contemporary with handmade pottery recovered from several other features.
The possible ditches recorded at this location were aligned east-to-west and north-north-east to south-south-west. Neither appears to have been entirely convincing,
Although several of the trenches coincided with linear cropmarks mapped at this location (all part of a group of undated probable ditches recorded as NHER 53663) no corresponding features were identified.
No unstratified finds were recovered at this location.
See report (S1) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 28 May 2024.