NHER 60738 (Monument record) - Undated holloway or boundary ditch

July 2010. Geophysical Survey.
A detailed magnetometer survey was carried out over two adjacent fields, approximately 1.5ha of pasture, on behalf of the landowner.

Personal communication to the landowner from Dr Trump, Staff Tutor in Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, suggested that four roads predating the known pattern of Roman roads in Norfolk converge on the ridge to the north of Salamanca farm and that a small invasion period Roman fort could be located there. Subsequent investigation in 1988 including dowsing and resistivity was carried out, but no archaeological features were identified at the time.

The only feature of possible archaeological origin identified during the magnetometry survey was a former trackway or ditch running east-west across the centre of the surveyed area. The feature correlates with a linear depression or hollowway visible on the surface of the western field. This feature also correlates with a field boundary depicted on the 1844 Tithe map (S1), which divided the western field in two but did not extend into the eastern field where the feature appears to continue. The fields had reached their present configuration by the time of the First Edition Ordnance Survey map (S2).

Two areas of thermoremnant material such as brick, tile, burnt material, or ferrous fragments were detected: one immediately south of the hollowway in the western field and one in the southwestern corner of the survey area. The former may represent dumping adjacent to or within the hollowway, while the latter has been interpreted as an area of more recent dumping or burning.

All other variations in the magnetic responses have been interpreted as the result of modern agricultural activity and disturbance from nearby fencing.

See report (S3) for further information.
H. Hamilton (HES), 20 April 2015.