NHER 52659 (Monument record) - Features containing Iron Age pottery and post-medieval ditch

December 2008-January 2009. Watching Brief.
Monitoring of groundworks associated with installation of Anglian Water pipeline (Area B north).
A ditch and two apparently overlying pits revealed at this site all produced handmade pottery of probable Early to Middle Iron Age date, although the presence of some later pottery may indicate these were more recent remains that had disturbed Iron Age deposits. The earliest feature was the east-to-west aligned ditch which was only visible where the subsoil had been fully removed from a strip along the eastern edge of the easement. It produced a small number of Iron Age pottery sherds and a single Roman sherd. This ditch was close to the mapped position of a sinuous east-north-east to south-south-west aligned cropmark that is part of a group thought to represent elements of an Iron Age or Roman field system (NHER 27400).
Two intercutting pits visible at a higher level lay on the line of the ditch and were therefore presumably of later date. These produced more than 30 sherds of Iron Age pottery, along with a single handmade sherd identified as being of possible Middle Saxon or later date.
The only other feature identified at this location was a north-north-east to south-south-west aligned ditch that produced post-medieval pottery and corresponds with a former field boundary depicted on the Ormesby St Margaret tithe map (S1). Several small pits cut by this ditch produced no finds but were considered to be potentially prehistoric.
A small assemblage of worked flints recovered from the excavated features consists mostly of Late Prehistoric pieces that probably date to the later Bronze Age; the one exception being an Early Neolithic flint blade.
See report (S2) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 28 April 2021.

This number was originally intended to be used for all remains recorded between Yarmouth Road, Ormesby St Margaret and the A149 Norwich Road at West Caister. Features revealed to the north and south of this site are now recorded separately under NHERs 64881, 64513 and 64514.
P. Watkins (HES), 28 April 2021.