NHER 740 (Monument record) - Saxon peat deposit, medieval wall foundation and other, undated and medieval or later remains

18 July 1985. Field Observation.
Examination of foundations dug for new school sports pavilion.
Staffordshire white salt glazed stoneware and clay pipe stem.
Compiled by W.Milligan (NCM). Information from record card (S1).
Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 7 March 2024.

July 1999. Trial Trench.
Evaluation of site of proposed extension to Norwich Lower School buildings.
The single trench excavated encountered natural sand at a depth of approximately 1.90m, although this was rapidly covered by ground water. The overlying subsoil layer was truncated by a ditch of uncertain date with a very dark organic fill.
Finds were limited to fragments of lead waste and a single oyster shell – all of which were recovered from the uppermost garden soils.
See report (S2) for further details.
H. Wallis, 9 December 1999. Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 7 March 2024.

August 2012. Trial Trenching.
Evaluation of proposed development site.
The westernmost of the two small trenches excavated revealed what is thought to have been a naturally-deposited riverine alluvium at a depth of c.1.30m. This deposit lay above increasingly clean orange sand and gravel and was overlain by a very damp, dark grey, slightly sandy clay silt. Finds recovered from this possible buried soil included a medieval pottery sherd, fragments of medieval ceramic building material, animal bone and an oyster shell. A sample from this deposit produced low densities of material likely to represent hearth waste and other domestic debris, including charcoal, charred cereal grains, hazel and walnut nutshell fragments, fragments of animal bone, fish bone and marine mollusc shell fragments. This deposit was cut by a pit of uncertain function, the fills of which produced a single sherd of Late Saxon pottery and several additional fragments of medieval ceramic building material. Despite the early nature of these finds it is recorded that the pit also cut an overlying mixed soil deposit that contained a significant quantity of late post-medieval to early modern pottery and is thought to have been material imported to raise and/or level the ground surface at this location.
The lowest deposit encountered in the eastern trench (within a small exploratory sondage) was a mid grey brown sand likely to represent naturally-accumulated alluvial material. This was overlain by a 0.23m thick layer of mid brown peat, which was in turn sealed by a silty sand tentatively interpreted as a riverine flood deposit. A Middle to Late Saxon radiocarbon date of 710-890 cal AD at 95% probability was obtained for material from this peat layer (Beta -33196; 1210+/-30BP). These naturally-accumulated deposits were overlain by a fine dark grey sandy silt that potentially represented a former garden soil. A bulk sample from this deposit produced a similar range of probable domestic debris to that recovered from the lowest soil layer encountered in the western trench. Soil micromorphology, soil chemistry, magnetic susceptibility, palynolgy and diatom analysis was also carried out on samples taken from this sequence of early deposits. The upper portion of the laminated peat layer was shown to have been associated with an environment that had ceased to be permantly waterlogged. There was further clear evidence that the ensuing accumulation of an alluvial sandy soil had increasingly been accompanied by the dumping of domestic kitchen and phosphate-rich latrine waste – consistent with the results of the bulk sampling for plant macrofossils and other remains.
Lying directly above the earliest possible soil was a north-to-south aligned wall foundation consisting of flint pebbles/stone and red brick fragments bound with a pale cream lime mortar. Sealing the remains of this wall was a mixed soil likely to represent imported make-up. Like the equivalent layer in the western trench this deposit produced finds indicative of a 19th-century or later date.
See report (S3) for further details.
An archive associated with this work has been deposited with Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2025.163).
P. Watkins (HES), 7 March 2024. Amended 24 August 2025.