NHER 33607 (Monument record) - 19th- or 20th-century rectilinear enclosure within Thetford Warren

May 1998. Earthwork survey.
Forestry Compartment High Lodge East 5013, Thetford Warren:
Earthwork enclosure, D-shaped, with a pit in one corner.
Alongside footpath that could be the descendant of the Way to Downham of 1805.
Suggested as post-medieval sheep compound.
See unpublished report (S1) by [1] for plan and further details.
E. Rose (NLA), 29 May 1998.

January 2019. 'Brecks from Above' and Breckland National Mapping Programme.
The undated enclosure described above is visible as an earthwork on imagery from a lidar survey (S2). It is rectilinear in plan (rather than D-shaped, as described above). Although absent from the Ordnance Survey First Edition 6 inch map (S3), it is depicted on the Ordnance Survey Second Edition 25” map (S4), suggesting that it is of late-19th or early-20th century date. Many other similar enclosures have been identified across Thetford Warren (NHER 54069; see NHER 62006, NHER 62122 and NHER 61997, for example), and in other Breckland warrens such as Downham High and Elveden. They are likely to have been associated with the management or trapping of the rabbits, and may be the remains of tip traps, which were known to have been introduced to Thetford Warren (S5). If this interpretation is correct, then the internal pit within the enclosure may be the remains of the trap itself. As the lidar survey was flown relatively recently, it is probable that the earthworks still survive.
NMP mapping has led to the alteration of the central grid reference of the site, moving it several metres to the north [2].
S. Tremlett (Norfolk Historic Environment Service), 28 January 2019.