NHER 10751 (Monument record) - Priory Farm, St Mary's Road

'Moat. Burial Ground' - OS.
OS card describes as small homestead moat with 18th century dovecote. No record of where 'burial ground' information came from - owners at that time had no knowledge of it. R.R. Clarke (NCM) speculated that it was the burial ground of the priory, but this is improbable on a moated site. 'Burial Ground' information is probably a confusion with the skulls found in 1935 (NHER 10725).
Site visited by E. Rose (NAU) 1 March 1978.

No trace of dovecote, which new owners say 'vanished donkey's years ago'. Small moat very overgrown, embanked but very small and irregular. Long rectangular 'moat' to north is in a depression but channels are level with ground around.
Very doubtful whether this is a moat at all and not a sallow bed or something. Covered in rubbish, old trees etc. and soon to be filled in for new buildings.

4 September 1978.
Holes for foundations of new barns seen by E. Rose (NAU). Did not generally reach below sand tipped into moat as base, and when they did they were full of water. Only fragments of 18th century brick in soil thrown up from these deeper holes.
Local people say that when barns to north-west by churchyard built about 1975 human bones were found, so perhaps this is the site mentioned (NHER 10725) where they were found before. The dovecot was demolished in 1973 and was of brick; perhaps donkeys do not live very long in this area.
E.Rose (NAU).

1996. Trial Trenching.
Evaluation of site immediately north of the recorded findspot of the bones, north-west of the moat, proved negative; modern build-up on top of natural peat.
See report (S1) for further details.
The archive associated with this work has been deposited with the Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2008.52).
E. Rose (NLA) 14 November 1996. Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 5 May 2019.