NHER 43637 (Monument record) - Site of a post medieval ropewalk at Great Yarmouth College, Southtown

May 2006. Norfolk NMP.
Parallel ridges oriented approximately northnorthwest by southsoutheast are visible as earthworks on aerial photographs (S1)-(S3), centred at TG 5217 0644. The extent of the earthworks has been mapped by the NMP, rather than the individual ridges. They are almost certainly 19th century in date, as they cut across boundaries depicted on South Town Tithe Map of 1843 (S4). They could have been associated with the use of the site for rope-making: ‘Rope Walk’ is marked towards the southern end of the site on the Ordnance Survey 1st edition 6 inch map (S5) and similar ridges are shown on a photograph of a ropewalk in Wrenthorpe (West Yorkshire) taken in around 1910 (S6) (copy in file). Alternatively, they might be drainage features or even late ridge and furrow, although their width of approximately 9m is wider than would be expected of the latter (see Wilson 2000 (S7)). The ridges were partially overlain by a military site during World War Two (NHER 43306), by which time the ropewalk was presumably out of use. (As it is not marked on the Ordnance Survey 2nd edition 25 inch map (S8)-(S9) rope making at the site may have ceased by the turn of the century). They were levelled in the post-war period (S10) and a large part of the site has now been built over.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 10 May 2006.