NHER 60811 (Monument record) - Prehistoric pits and undated ditches

September-October 2006. Geophysical Survey.
Magnetometer survey of area on proposed route of A47 Blofield to North Burlingham dualling.
Examination of northernmost part of site (Area H).
The results were greatly affected by magnetic disturbance from a metal service pipe.
No potentially archaeologically-significant anomalies were detected.
See report (S1) for further details. The results of this work are also summarised in (S2).
An archive associated with this work has been deposited with Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2016.297).
Previously recorded under NHER 39847.
P. Watkins (HES), 10 June 2015. Amended 29 March 2021.

January 2007.
Environmental Statement produced (S3).
P. Watkins (HES), 10 June 2015.

March 2018. Geophysical Survey.
Magnetometer survey on route of proposed A47 Blofield to North Burlingham upgrade works.
Examination of southern part of site (Area BLO5).
A curvilinear trend in the centre of this site may be of archaeological interest, potentially representing the remains of a ring-ditch.
An east-north-east to west-south-west aligned linear anomaly potentially represents a former field boundary, continuing the line of an extant boundary to the west.
Small, scattered ferrous anomalies are likely to represent modern ferrous debris within the topsoil.
Information from report uploaded to OASIS. HER copy awaited.
P. Watkins (HES), 29 March 2021.

May-July 2020. Trial Trenching.
Evaluation of route of proposed A47 Blofield to North Burlingham upgrade works (Trenches 46-51)
The six trenches excavated at this location revealed a number of ditches and pits, the majority of which produced little or no dating evidence. Several features did however contain prehistoric finds, with the most convincingly dated being a pit that produced a small assemblage of undecorated Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age Post-Deverel-Rimbury pottery. Handmade pottery of a potentially similar date was also recovered from two ditches at the western end of the site, although the quantities were very small. A sample taken from the fill of one of these ditches was found to contain a number of charred grains as well as small ferrous globules that may represent metal-working debris. A pit in this part of the site also produced a number of small, abraded prehistoric pottery sherds, which have been tentatively assigned a Middle-Late Iron Age date.
The only find recovered from the various other ditches was a possible Roman tile fragment. The majority of these features are therefore undated, although the range of alignments suggests they are likely to represent multiple phases of activity.
The one unstratified find of note was a gilded silver mount of probable medieval date - an object which is also recorded on the PAS database [1]. This silver mount was disclaimed as Treasure (Ref: 2020 T628) and returned to the project archive.
See report (S4) for further details.
An archive associated with this work has been deposited with Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2020.103).
P. Watkins (HES), 6 July 2022. Amended 27 July 2023.