NHER 9209 (Monument record) - Possible Iron Age earthworks or pingos and pottery sherds

1930.
Suggested Iron Age house earthworks. Discovered with sherds and flints.
Possibly recent ponds.
See notes and Ancient Monument description in file.
E. Rose (NLA) 26 September 1990.

June 2010. Field visit.
It was possible to identify the three embanked ponds (with diameters up to 50m), along with a number of other ponds, hollows and undulations, within an area of woodland. Given the size of the ponds and the surrounding topography it is unlikely that the embanked ponds are the remains of prehistoric houses. Instead they may be collapsed pingos (mounds with a central core of ice that form in periglacial landscapes when groundwater freezes, forming the ice core and creating the mound). Pingos collapse when the ice core melts and collapsed pingos often have a central depression (where the ice core was) surrounded by a raised rim or bank (material that moved down the sides of the mound); see (S1). The three embanked ponds fit this characteristic description. Collapsed pingos are known elsewhere in Norfolk, including examples at Thompson and East Walton/Gayton.

It is possible that these possible collapsed pingos held water during the Neolithic, Bronze Age and/or Iron Age. If so, they would have provided an important sources of water and this would explain the discovery of the burnt flints. Other pingos in Norfolk appear also to have been foci for prehistoric activity.
D. Robertson (NLA), 2 July 2010.

June 2012. Norfolk NMP.
This area was examined as part of the National Mapping Programme. It was possible to make out earthworks on aerial photographs (S2-S3) within the wooded area, centred on TM 0528 9013, although none of the earthworks were considered to be archaeological in nature, they appear to be either natural undulations or possibly post medieval ponds. There are also a number of earthworks in the field to the east, centred on TM 0546 9017, although these were also considered likely to be natural in origin.
E. Bales (NMP), 19 June 2012.

May 2015. Historic England looking at removing this site from the Schedule of Ancient Monuments.
D. Gurney (HES), 15 May 2015.