NHER 53596 (Monument record) - Site of possible Roman settlement or enclosure complex

May 2010. Norfolk NMP.
A possible enclosure complex, probably a settlement and perhaps of Roman date, is visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs taken in 1969 (S1), centred at TG 1390 0851. Faint traces are also visible on aerial photographs taken in 1946 (S2). Only what appears to be the western part of the site is visible, defined on its western side (and perhaps also its northern) by a double-ditched boundary or trackway. The site is reminiscent in its rectilinear plan and double-ditched elements of known or probable settlement of Roman date, including possible villas, identified elsewhere in Norfolk; see, for example, the NMP Coastal Zone report (S3), and sites such as those at Thurne (NHER 21838) and Ashby (NHER 45060). Although no material of Roman (or any other) date has been recovered from the field itself, a considerable number of Roman finds have been collected from the area to the northeast. That said, the possibility that some or all of the mapped elements are drainage features of relatively recent origin cannot be ruled out. The apparent small platform or mound located towards the southern end of the site is one of several such ‘positive’ features visible on the photographs, the remainder of which have been dismissed as being of geological origin.
S. Tremlett (NMP), 18 May 2010.