NHER 59627 (Find Spot record) - Unprovenanced prehistoric worked and burnt flints and prehistoric pottery, sand pit close to River Wensum (Sparham, poorly located)

8 September 1915. Stray Find.
In 1915 a number of prehistoric finds were recovered by J. E. Sainty from a sand pit located near the River Wensum in Sparham. These discoveries were briefly published the following year (S1).

Unfortunately Sainty's article did not include a plan and as a result the location of this site is not known, although it was clearly somewhere at the southern end of the parish, close to the river. Although these discoveries were previously recorded in the same record as the Mesolithic site that Sainty discovered in this area (NHER 3018), this would appear to be an error (particularly as there is no cartographic evidence for a pit at this location). The published article describes the pit as "…cut into the low plateau that borders the alluvium of the Wensum valley, and at a height of about 20 ft. above the river level. The plateau falls sharply with a grassy slope to a road above the marshes…". It is possible that the pit lay somewhere to the east of Sainty's Mesolithic site.

The finds are recorded as being recovered from a layer that contained "…many potboilers, flakes, implements, and fragments of pottery". This layer lay above natural glacial sand. Charcoal from the pit was identified as being oak. Medieval brick was also found in the overlying soil. The flints recovered included a single-platform core (described as a 'cone') and 16 flakes, "all rough wasters", two of which had been retouched. A number of similar flakes and a scraper were found in the field behind the pit. Sainty identified the pottery as including sherds of both Neolithic and Bronze Age date. The flints are described as being Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age, and although they were recorded on (S2) as Mesolithic they may well indeed by later prehistoric in date. These finds may be amongst the collection of material from Sparham that was subsequently passed to the Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 1959.61 : A).

P. Watkins (HES), 22 August 2013.