NHER 60085 (Find Spot record) - Palaeolithic flint handaxe and possibly other implements

1911. Stray Find.
Found in an "old gravel pit" near Gresham Church:
1 Palaeolithic flint handaxe. Now held by Norwich Castle Museum.
Information from (S1).
This is almost certainly an object that had been found by J. Cox (the headmaster of Gresham School), who collected a large number of Palaeolithic objects from the gravel pits that the open in Gresham around this time. Although this find is not specifically mentioned in any of Cox's published notes, it may be one of a "…series of early Palaeoliths found…in sand and gravel on a slope of a tributary of the Bure" that he exhibited at a meeting of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia on 13 March 1911 (S2).

This is probably a handaxe that Wymer identified in the NCM's Cox-Barclay Collection (NWHCM : 1935.57, not individually accessioned) marked "Gresham Glebe gravel 1911". This object is described on (S3) and in (S4) as a broken pointed handaxe in slightly rolled condition. This handaxe is also noted in (S5) and (S6), although in both cases the finds from this site are conflated with those likely to come from what is a second pit located a little way to the north-west, on the west side of the East Beckham Road (NHER 6603).

The mapped extent of this record reflects the probable location for this pit first suggested by Wymer, which is a former quarry pit within a plantation that was formerly known as Gravel Pit Plantation. This is probably the location in which Cox noted that glacial gravels could "…with a little trouble, be examined a quarter of a mile to the north of Gresham Church" (S7).
P. Watkins (HES), 20 June 2014.

Pre 1920. Stray Find.
As noted above, it is known that Cox recovered a significant number of potentially Palaeolithic worked flints in Gresham during the late 19th century and early 20th century. Although there are a number that can be associated with specific sites, many of those described in (S7) and a proportion of those now held by the NCM are of much less certain provenance. It does however appear that the majority of these poorly-provenanced pieces were probably recovered from either this pit or the pit on the East Beckham Road (NHER 6603). Although in (S4) Wymer argues that many were probably from the pit near the church, it seems more likely that the majority were from the Beckham Road pit. See NHER 6603 for further discussion of these finds.
P. Watkins (HES), 20 June 2014.