NHER 12805 (Cropmark and Earthwork) - Cropmarks of undated ring ditch

Cropmarks. Circular enclosure with an entrance - a fold? Linear marks and a track.
(S1).

April 2005. Norfolk NMP.
The linear cropmarks and trackway noted above are now recorded as NHER 38933. NMP mapping has led to the alteration of the central grid reference of the site from TG 2979 3690 to TG 2977 3698.
The circular enclosure described above is visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs (S2 to S4). A number of different interpretations of the site are possible, and there is little evidence to indicate which one is correct. It has been classified elsewhere as a ring ditch and the probable site of a Bronze Age round barrow (S5). The possibility, however, that it is a stock enclosure, such as a sheepfold or even a pound, as suggested above, cannot be ruled out. Alternatively, it might be a large round house or domestic enclosure, perhaps associated with the earlier (probably Iron Age to Roman) elements of the multi period field system (NHER 38933) which surrounds it. It might even represent the remains of a medieval postmill, the terminal of the entrance perhaps being formed by the cross of the mill. Similar interpretations might be put forward for a second 'ring' ditch (NHER 39064) 100m to the southeast, although there the possibilities are more restricted due to the distinctive ovoid form of the ditch. Whether the two ring ditches were contemporary, therefore, or were in some way associated with each other remains unknown.
The ring ditch or enclosure is approximately circular in plan and measures up to 19.5m in diameter. It has a distinctive inturned entrance on its south side, which ends in a pit like cropmark which could, for example, represent a burial (in the case of a round barrow) or the base of a postmill.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 11 April 2005.