NHER 67171 (Monument record) - Post-medieval brick structure

October 2017-January 2018. Watching Brief.
Maintained during excavation of shallow scrape to provide material for flood bank enhancement and other improvement works (Scrape 7).
The machine driver reported encountering a south-west to north-east aligned row of bricks at the base of this scrape. By the time of the monitoring visit this structure was obscured by water and silt that had accumulated at the base of the scrape, although probing allowed it to be traced for at least 5m (it possibly extended further). A brick recovered for further examination is in an estuarine fabric and likely to be of late medieval or early post-medieval date. As reclamation of these marshes did not begin until the 18th-century it is likely that these bricks were reused from an earlier structure elsewhere. The function of this wall is uncertain as the available historic maps and aerial photographs show no evidence for a structure at this location.
See report (S1) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 22 July 2023.