NHER 18236 (Monument record) - Cropmarks of Roman ditches, Roman and post medieval pottery sherds

27 June 1980. Cropmark.
Corner of double linear mark forming part of rectangle, and other markings. Continuation of site NHER 1515 across road and railway? Does not obviously connect.
E. Rose, 19 July 1982.

4 September 1989. NAU Aerial Photography.
Cropmarks of trackways and enclosures.
D. Edwards/M. Flitcroft, February 1993.

18 June 1990. NAU aerial photography.
Cropmarks of enclosure and junction of four trackway.
D. Edwards (NAU).

1990. Watching brief.
During construction of A149 Snettisham Bypass.
No traces of linear aerial photograph ditches recorded.
Finds of one post medieval, one Roman pottery sherds.
M. Flitcroft (NAU), July 1995.

For results of 1984 soil phosphate and magnetic susceptibility survey, see archive for site NHER 1555.
D. Gurney (NLA), 23 October 1996.

July 2003. Norfolk NMP.
The majority of the ditches are straight and regular, and are aligned in an approximately southwest to northeast or northwest to southeast direction. Within the western half of the site is a cruciform arrangement of double-ditched features which appears to be a crossroads of trackways or drove roads. The cropmarks at the centre of the crossroads are not so distinct, but the southwest to northeast aligned road does appear to respect the other. The different trackways may not have been laid out at the same time, although they almost certainly existed contemporaneously. The southern track appears to be leading to site NHER 26626 to the immediate south, and the eastern trackway appears to be heading for site NHER 28450 to the immediate east.
A right-angled length of ditch to the east of the crossroads forms a rectangular field, and there appear to be further field or enclosure ditches beyond this, to the east. Interestingly, the watching brief undertaken during the construction of the Snettisham bypass failed to identify the source of these linear cropmarks to the east.
M. Brennand (NMP), 7 July 2003.

June 2014. Trial Trenching.
Excavation of several trial trenches within the north-east corner of the mapped extrent of this site recorded a single ditch oriented northeast to southwest. This ditch shares a similar orientation to those mapped in this record but was not visible as a cropmark. The lower fill of the ditch contained animal bone and mineralised plant stem fragments, and analysis of the latter indicated an 18th to 20th century date for the ditch.
See report (S4) and NHER 60661 for further details.
H. Hamilton (HES), 20 March 2015.

August 2018. Geophysical Survey.
Magnetometer survey of proposed development site to west of A149.
Although the area examined coincided with one of the main groups of cropmarks only one was associated with evidence for surviving sub-surface deposits. It should though be noted that subsequent trial trenching of a site to the east (NHER 65078) demonstrated that the geophysical survey of this land had only identified some of the linear features present.
See NHER 65080 for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 12 June 2021.