NHER 53215 (Cropmark and Earthwork record) - Earthworks and cropmarks of enclosure, building platform, fields and boundaries

December 2009. Norfolk NMP.
The earthworks and cropmarks of an area of an enclosure and/or building platform, fields and boundaries of medieval to post medieval date are visible on aerial photographs in the area of French Church Farm to the north of Caistor Lane, Caistor St Edmund. The site is centred on TG 2524 0365.
At TG 2520 0344 is a small rectangular embanked enclosure and/or building platform, measuring approximately 40m by 30m. On some aerial photographs the earthworks appear to indicate a raised rectangular platform, whilst in 1946 (S1) an embanked enclosure is clearly visible. It may be that the whole area is raised and embanked. This may have acted as a stock enclosure or could have been a building or house platform. A low mound, measuring 26m by 10m, may be visible to the northeast of the enclosure, although it is possible that the apparent height of this feature is in part an optical illusion created by the snow cover on the site in February 1946 (S1). A series of parallel banks and ditches in this area are likely to relate to raised agricultural beds. The earthworks in the area of the platform adjacent to the road may still survive (S3), although there is likely to have been some disturbance.
To the north of the enclosure earthworks, a series of field and land divisions are visible as earthworks in the 1940s and 1950s, but have since been ploughed. Possible continuations of the boundaries into the area of Caistor Wood to the north, may have been visible through the tree cover in 1946 (S1).
The field boundaries and enclosures to the north and northeast of the site, which were only visible as cropmarks, appear to form a pattern of enclosure that would be consistent with the earthworks to the south and southwest, but pre-date the majority of the post medieval field divisions, that are at least nineteenth century in date, as they are depicted on the 1840 Caistor St Edmund Tithe map (S4). It is assumed that these cropmark field boundaries relate to the medieval landscape, due to their comparable alignment and arrangement to other components of the site, although it is feasible that some are earlier in date.
S. Horlock (NMP), 21 December 2009.