NHER 43736 (Monument record) - Cropmark enclosure and field boundaries of possible Iron Age to Roman date

March 2005. Norfolk NMP.
The cropmarks of a group of enclosures and field boundaries of possible Iron Age to Roman date are visible on aerial photographs near Eye Farm, Hickling (S1-S2). The site is centred on TG 4250 2245. Other similarly aligned groups of cropmark field boundaries and ditches are located to the west and east (NHER 43735 and 43739) and may be of a similar date and possibly part of the same site. These cropmarks are located within a wider spread of undated, multi-phase cropmarks (NHER 43738).

These cropmarks obviously pre-date 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 (S3). The morphology of the cropmarks would suggest a possible Iron Age to Roman date. 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.

The site consists of a group of conjoined rectilinear enclosures and ditched linear features. Many of the features are quite fragmentary and discontinuous, but possibly suggest two main rectangular enclosed areas, one at TG 4244 2258, approximately 90m by 60m, and another at TG 4250 2238, measuring approximately 100m. This southern enclosure has many conjoined ditches that suggest a series of fields and paddocks. Centred on TG 4255 2230 is a cluster of closely set ditches (S1) that may reveal a highly subdivided area within the larger enclosures and this could indicate that a specific activity was taking place in this are, possibly associated with agriculture or stock management. Although these are located towards the lower edge of the Stubb, towards the peat deposits and the former Chapman’s Broad and surrounding fen (NHER 43724), and therefore some of these linear features could possibly related to drainage. However the shared alignment with the rest of the cropmarks would suggest that they are of a similar archaeological origin.
S. Massey (NMP), 29 March 2005.