NHER 4072 (Monument record) - Litcham Priory

14th century chapel, extended as house in 16th to 17th century.
Moated site where footings uncovered Roman sherds. Records of crosses.
For full details see (S1)-(S3) in file.
E. Rose (NAU), 28 May 1981.

August 1981. Stray Find.
Found on spoilheap after digging foundations for porch:
Medieval Grimston ware pottery jug. See drawing (S5).
Identified by A. Rogerson (NAU), August 1981. Currently on loan to Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : L1983.7). Compiled by E. Rose (NAU), 3 September 1981.
Information from (S6).
Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 6 August 2018.

February 1992. Laying of electricity cables.
Foundations of large flint wall encountered.
E. Rose (NLA), 14 February 1992.

Called hermitage in document of around 1410.
There were two crosses nearby, exact sites unknown. One was 'over the river to the south of the hermitage', the other 'further soutrh'. Not known if they were religious crosses or boundary markers for the manor.
See (S4).

April 2006. Priory Farmhouse - include the remains of the chapel.
East gable of flint with stone plinth, two massive buttresses, outline of large east window. East end of south wall survives, with large 14th century doorway; rest brick of about 1800. North wall remains as internal wall. Southwest buttress partly inside and partly outside. West wall has two fireplaces on the inside and 17th century brick and flint façade. Inside east wall is a huge 16th century fireplace. Upper rooms 17th century. Extension of 1620.
The moat is to the northwest of the farmhouse. Irregular in shape. Banked high on inside on north and northwest sides. Western side is a ditch, on east and south sides infilled. Houses now built inside - foundation trenches of one seen in 1979, medieval pottery recovered from spoil heaps. In 1981 two flint walls were found within the moat's island during the laying of drains.
Priory Barn - north of the farmhouse. Large, 17th century, flint. Heightened in brick in 18th century. Now a house.
Between farmhouse and moat - 19th/20th century outbuildings now used as restaurant. In 1981 during work on the building a possible yard surface and a large feature, possibly the infilled southern arm of the moat, were discovered.
Information from (S1).
The two crosses mentioned above could be those recorded as NHER 36193 - these crosses were on Litcham Common, putting them to the south or southwest of the hermitage/chapel.
D. Robertson (NLA), 28 April 2006.

(S4) notes in addition that the 17th century section is timber framed and jettied to the north, and the original chapel section has a crownpost roof.
E. Rose (NLA), 30 June 2006.

March-November 2017. Watching Brief.
Monitoring of groundworks associated a programme of redevelopment at Pilgrim Barn, which saw the conversion of the barn and outbuildings and the construction of a new cart lodge.
A test pit excavated within the courtyard was dug to a depth of 1.2m, exposing sterile waterlogged riverine deposits at its base. These were overlain by an organic rich clay silt containing a large number of horn corns from Long-Horn cattle - which almost certainly represented waste from the tannery known to have been present at this location in the 17th-century. This material had possibly been dumped to help consolidate an area of wet ground and was overlain by a sequence of stone and cobble courtyard surfaces. Two test pits were also excavated through the floor of the barn itself, with the earliest deposit encountered being a dense clay silt deposit contained horn cores that likely predated the construction of the barn. Other finds recovered from this layer included a pottery sherd of 15th- to 16th-centuy date and a late medieval/early post-medieval thimble ring. This material was overlain by a sequence of make-up layers associated with the construction of the barn, which were in turn sealed by a cobbled layer interpreted as a 19th-century floor surface. In one of the test pits several heat-roasted bricks within this surface potentially represented the scar of a former heath.
Additional test-pits excavated at the site of the new building revealed a similar sequence of deposits to the one dug in the courtyard, with sterile riverine deposits overlain by a charcoal-flecked clay silt layer containing a small amount of butchered sheep and cattle bone. This lay beneath a sequence of three post-medieval flint cobble surfaces which were in turn sealed by a chalk make-up deposit. This compacted raft of chalk appears to have extended across the whole area and was probably deposited during the 19th-century redevelopment of the site. A flint and mortar wall was also partially exposed, which potentially represented part of a 17th- or 18th-century precursor to the extant outbuilding. The footings of a probable 19th-century boundary wall were also exposed.
The excavation of various trenches within the courtyard exposed the south-west corner of a flint and mortar building that predated the brick and flint west wall of Pilgrim Barn, but which matched up with the internal wall thought to be the original end gable of the pre 1900s barn. This indicates the building had been narrowed, presumably when it was extended and altered during the 19th century. A boundary wall comprised of mortar, flint and post-medieval brick was also recorded.
See report (S7) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 17 June 2026.