NHER 58798 (Monument record) - Late 13th to 14th century clay extraction pit and peg tiles

December 2011-February 2012. Trial Trenching.
A large clay extraction pit and associated deposits were recorded during excavation of two trial trenches. The extraction pit was over 22m wide and contained vast quantities of 13th to 14th century peg tiles and over-fired tile wasters which had been deposited in numerous layers interspersed with deposits of pure brown clay. The contents of the pit have been identified as waster deposits from a medieval kiln in the immediate vicinity. The kiln itself was not located during the evaluation, but was probably active in the late 13th to 14th century and possibly continued into the 15th century. A few brick fragments recovered from the feature were not manufactured at the site and it has been suggested they may have formed part of the kilns or other industrial buildings. Further kiln waste was found to the north of the pit, where two layers of clay also contained tile waster fragments. The upper layer may represent the base of a mound of waste which has long since been levelled.
The extraction pit was overlain by two post medieval or early modern ditches which contained residual medieval tile wasters, ceramic building material, and animal bone fragments. These ditches may correspond to a boundary ditch depicted on the first edition Ordnance Survey map (S1).
For evaluation results in other areas of this site see NHER 58795, NHER 58796, and NHER 58797.
See report (S2) for further details.
The archive associated with this work has been deposited with the Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2013.37).
H. Hamilton (HES), 3 May 2013. Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 16 May 2019.