NHER 64512 (Monument record) - Potentially Late Prehistoric to Roman and undated features

November 2020. Trial Trenching.
Evaluation of proposed development site.
Potentially archaeologically-significant features were present in four of the five trenches excavated. These included a number of ditches, as well as various discrete pits and possible post-holes - most of which were exposed in a single trench in the southern half of the site. Unfortunately, the majority of these remains produced little or no dating evidence; although the small assemblage of finds recovered suggests the site saw at least a degree of activity during multiple periods.
A small number of worked flints were recovered, including a several potentially Early Neolithic pieces, most of which were found in two adjacent pits. The bulk of the assemblage is though of probable later date, including two Bronze Age end scrapers and a number of irregular flakes and fragments that may well be of a broadly similar age. The majority of the flints were recovered from the trench containing the bulk of the pits and possible post-holes, one of which also produced a single sherd of probable Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age pottery. Two similar sherds that were potentially of the same date were also recovered from one of a pair of adjacent north-west to south-east ditches in a nearby trench. A prehistoric date has been suggested for these features as they also produced a number of worked flints. A single abraded medieval pottery sherd recovered from a probable continuation of one of these ditches to the north is therefore seen as probably intrusive. The limited nature of the evidence does though mean that the date of these ditches and a similarly aligned feature to the east must be regarded as uncertain. Several samples taken from these potentially early features produced only scarce charred plant macrofossils, which was consistent with the generally fairly sterile, unremarkable appearance of their fills.
The remaining later finds included small amounts of Roman, medieval and post-medieval pottery, a Roman tile fragment, a fragment of potentially Roman fired clay, post-medieval roof tile and pantile fragments and a single clay tobacco pipe stem. Apart from the fragment of fired clay all were recovered from unstratified subsoil contexts.
See report (S1) for further details.
An archive associated with this work has been deposited with Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2020.150).
P. Watkins (HES), 18 January 2020. Amended 11 February 2022.