NHER 50778 (Monument record) - Site of field boundaries, minor trackways and other linear ditches of probably Iron Age and/or Roman date, in the vicinity of Horstead Roman camp

January 2008. Norfolk NMP.
Some of the cropmarks described below were previously recorded as part of NHER 4379.
A group of linear ditches is visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs (S1)-(S13), centred at TG 2572 1928. Most probably represent field boundaries and minor trackways. They are all located in the vicinity of, and in some cases within, a Roman camp (NHER 4379), with which several of the ditches share their orientation. There is no evidence, however, that any are associated with the military use of the camp itself, although this is possible in some cases. Rather, they are likely to represent the landscape immediately before or after the camp’s military use, with one site taking its general orientation from the other, and the ditches therefore being of Iron Age and/or Roman date. As several of the ditches appear to respect the ditch circuit of the camp (although others cross it), it is likely that they were laid out once it had fallen out of use but still remained visible in the landscape. At least some of the ditches may be contemporary with a D-shaped enclosure (NHER 50776) located within the camp and a substantial trackway (NHER 50777) along its western side, both of which are also thought to date to this period. For example, a minor trackway visible between TG 2569 1936 and TG 2576 1932 seems to act as an approach to the entrance to the D-shaped enclosure. Others, however, cross both the trackway and the enclosure, suggesting that they represent earlier or later activity, although their shared orientation suggests a long period of gradual change to the landscape rather than several distinct phases.
The cropmarks are visible across a relatively extensive area. Pits depicted within the camp and in the surrounding area on the Royal Commission’s transcription of the site (NMR TG 21 NE 23; Welfare and Swan 1995, fig. 58 (S14)) are of doubtful archaeological origin and have not been mapped, the background geology of the site being conducive to the formation of pit-like cropmarks. A ring ditch depicted at the southern end of the camp (at TG 2572 1919) by the same source, and another at TG 2578 1939 shown on earlier transcriptions of the site by NLA (see secondary file for NHER 4379), have not been mapped for similar reasons. The origin of several narrow double ditches in the vicinity of a genuine ring ditch to the northwest (NHER 50775) is also uncertain, as is that of the ditches in the southwestern corner of the site (around TG 2548 1906). Due to inadequate control, some of those elements on the northwestern limits of the site, either side of a small copse of trees, were sketched from unrectified parts of the relevant aerial photographs
S. Tremlett (NMP), 8 January 2008.