NHER 40367 (Monument record) - Multi-period site beside the River Wensum, former Start-Rite Factory

April-May 2004. Watching Brief and Trial Trenching.
Initial monitoring during removal of overburden from site, followed by excavation of four evaluation trenches.
The earliest archaeological features on this site consisted of a Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age pit cut into the fluvial river sand. By the 11th to 14th centuries, large-scale dumping of dredged deposits had occurred across the site, perhaps as a result of planned reclamation of marginal land beside the river. Preserved timber elements strongly suggestive of a revetment or staithe constructed to protect the bank from erosion and to enable goods to be loaded and unloaded, were encountered near the modern river edge. There is evidence to suggest that local industries, including iron smelters, animal slaughterers, processors or skinners, dumped their waste on the site. It is also probable that hornworking occurred on or near the site.
A significant phase of ground buildup occurred during the 15th and 16th centuries, probably in an effort to reconstitute the marginal land. Several waste pits, a brick mortar culvert, and a foundation trench for a boundary wall, truncate this made-up ground.
During the 18th and 19th centuries cellars were built along the frontage of Duke Street, which were demolished and replaced by factory buildings in the later 19th century.
See report (S1) and (S2) for further details. The results of this work are also summarised in (S3).
The associated archive has been deposited with the Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2011.271).
A. Cattermole (NLA), 6 March 2007. Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 16 May 2019.