NHER 15911 (Monument record) - Possible Iron Age to Roman farmstead

Cropmark. 30 July 1975.
NAU air photography.
Cropmarks of two phase rectangular enclosure and recent field boundaries.
See overlay 6" scale for NHER Maps TG 33 NW, compiled March 1980.
Comp. D. Edwards 17 March 1980.

December 2004. Norfolk NMP.
The rectangular enclosure described above is visible as a cropmark on aerial photographs (S1). It is surrounded by the cropmarks of associated ditches (probably the 'recent' field boundaries mentioned above), visible on these and additional aerial photographs (S2-3), centred around TG 3065 3515. The general morphology of the enclosure and comparison with examples mapped from aerial photographs in Lincolnshire (S4) suggests that an Iron Age or Romano-British date is plausible for the site. Despite a general absence of dating evidence, many of the cropmark sites identified on the gravel geology on each side of Mundesley Beck have been tentatively dated to this period. Together they form a wide swathe of field systems and small settlement sites like the enclosure recorded here.

The layout of the enclosure implies at least two phases as suggested above. These are not, however, easy to separate, suggesting gradual changes over time. At its largest the enclosure measured approximately 125m by 70m but this was almost certainly divided up into compartments. A trackway aligned approximately east-to-west seems to be a related feature; the fact that it appears to slight, or be slighted by, the south-east corner of the enclosure again indicates more than one phase of construction. Other ditches around the enclosure may define further trackways, fields or paddocks. Two pits have also been mapped but should be treated with caution as the background geology of the site is conducive to the formation of pit-like cropmarks.
(S1-4)
S. Tremlett (NMP), 8 December 2004.