NHER 55849 (Monument record) - Early Neolithic hollow and other, undated and post-medieval remains

March 2011. Geophysical Survey.
Magnetometer survey of large proposed development area.
The survey detected a former field boundary in the southern part of the site but mostly the response was poor due to modern services running through the area, including a high pressure gas main. It is possible that some anomalies may be of archaeological origin but these were more likely to reflect changes in background geology.
See report (S1) for further details.
S. Howard (HES), 25 July 2011.

August-September 2011. Trial Trenching.
Evaluation of large proposed development area.
Although a total of 95 trenches were excavated archaeologically significant remains were limited to a small number of scattered ditches and isolated discrete features, that majority of which produced little or no dating evidence.
It is notable that an assemblage of prehistoric worked flints is the only artefactual evidence for activity on the site prior to the post-medieval period, with all of the stratified material recovered from a single feature. This probable natural hollow was located in the western part of the site and produced a total of 82 worked flints - all of which are blades and blade-like flakes of probable Early Neolithic date. A single burnt flint was also recovered that was possibly the remains of an exhausted blade core. A sample taken from the fill of this hollow produced a single indeterminate cereal grain, a small amount of fish bone and charcoal/charred wood fragment. The majority of the small number of unstratified flints recovered in other trenches were also identified as probably Early Neolithic, including a blade core, blade core platform rejuvenation flake, scrapers, possible flake blanks and a backed knife. This material was widely distributed across the site.
The majority of the ditches were undated north-west to south-east and north-east to south-west aligned features, most of which lay in the southern half of the site. The one exception was a north-to-south aligned ditch in the northern part of the site that produced a single sherd of post-medieval pottery. Samples taken from various ditch fills all produced little in the way of plant macrofossils or other remains.
The only other feature of note was a pit containing dumps of cockle shell and wood fragments that produced a range of post-medieval and modern finds.
Although a trench placed across the site of a possible cropmark ring-ditch at TG 1947 1326 (NHER 54400) revealed a north-west to south-east aligned ditch, this feature was some distance from the recorded location of the ring-ditch and was probably unrelated. This work also failed to find any evidence for surviving sub-surface remains associated with the fragmentary linear cropmarks recorded at the southern end of the site (NHER 36405), although it should be noted that the trenches appear to have only definitely coincided with one of the cropmarks.
A trench placed across circular cropmarks recorded at TG 1965 1345 (NHER 17476) also revealed no archaeologically-significant remains. This would support the revised interpretation of these cropmarks as most probably geological in origin.
See report (S2) for further details.
The archive associated with this work is believed to have been deposited with Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2011.648)
P. Watkins (HES), 30 January 2021.