NHER 65682 (Monument record) - Medieval finds and late post-medieval and undated walls

April 2017. Trial Trenching.
Evaluation of proposed development site.
Two trenches were opened, both of which exposed structural remains. Machine excavation was halted at the level of these walls, with the remainder of the trenches investigated via a series of hand-excavated test pits. This approach inevitably limited the potential for identifying any early remains present.
One of the trenches revealed the remains of a reasonably substantial north-to-south aligned brick wall which is described as 'modern'. However, although a brick sample retrieved for analysis apparently dates to the 20th-century, this does not appear to be consistent with the cartographic evidence. It is highly likely that this was the eastern wall of a substantial house that can be seen at this location on the Ordnance Survey 1:500 Town Plan map of 1882. It was probably a fairly grand building as a porch is shown midway along its eastern wall and an associated formal garden is depicted to the east. We can be confident about its location as the position of its western wall is clearly fossilised in the line of the site's western boundary. It is unclear when exactly this building was erected but it clearly survived well into the 20th century and there is no evidence that anything else was constructed at this location following its demolition.
The trench to the south revealed some limited evidence for medieval activity in the vicinity of this site, although this consisted primarily of unstratified finds. A possible linear feature recorded in the base of one of the sondages in the southern trench produced a single sherd of medieval pottery but the majority of the medieval pottery recovered came from two overlying layers. The uppermost of these also produced a floor tile of late medieval or early post-medieval date and fragments of late post-medieval brick. A north-to-south aligned flint and mortar wall and an adjacent cobbled surface overlying this deposits were therefore unlikely to be medieval in date. It is possible that they were associated with the garden that can be seen on the 1882 map.
In both trenches the uppermost deposits produced finds assemblages that consisted primarily of late post-medieval objects.
See report (S2) for further details.
An archive associated with this work has been deposited with Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2019.93).
P. Watkins (HES), 16 June 2022.