NHER 43741 (Monument record) - Multi-phase cropmark site, Hickling

March 2005. Norfolk NMP.
The cropmarks of a group of undated and multi-phase ditches, many of which are likely to be fragments of former field boundaries, are visible on aerial photographs in-between Stubb Farm and Stubb Mill, Hickling (S1). The site is centred on TG 4328 2218, although this point does not correspond to an archaeological feature on the ground. Two more coherent and rectilinear groups of cropmarks located within this area have been recorded separately (NHER 43739-40), some of which may be Iron Age to Roman date.

None of the cropmarks appear to show any relationship with the post medieval field layout and the road running west-east along the Stubb, which is likely to be of some antiquity and is marked on the 1797 Faden map (S2). The Stubb is a narrow strip of slightly raised ground, with loamy soils, which is surrounding by the lower valley peats and alluvial clays. This strip of land would probably have offered an obvious location for settlement and agriculture in the past. One of the features mapped at the northern edge of the site at TG 4321 2241 is a possible sub-circular incomplete ring ditch, 16m across. However the archaeological nature of this cropmark is not certain and it could be of agricultural or geological origin.
S. Massey (NMP), 29 March 2005.