NHER 65049 (Monument record) - Potentially Roman and undated remains

April-May 2019. Trial Trenching.
Evaluation of proposed development site.
Eight of the ten trenches revealed potentially archaeologically-significant remains, although these various ditches and discrete features produced little in the way of dating evidence. Finds were limited to two presumably residual Early Neolithic blade-like flint flakes, three Roman pottery sherds and a single potentially Roman brick or tile fragment.
Apart from a single unstatified pottery sherd the Roman finds were all recovered from features in the southern end of the site. The most notable feature in this part of the site was a curvilinear ditch that potentially represented either part of a ring-ditch or the corner of an enclosure. This feature was up to 2m wide, 0.69m deep and appeared to have been recut on at least one occasion. Despite the excavation of three slots finds were limited to a flint flake and single fragments of Roman pottery and burnt flint.
The majority of the other ditches were aligned either north-to-south or east-to-west. Although one of these features produced a single sherd of Roman pottery their alignments (parallel and perpendicular to Station Road) suggest they were most likely associated with more recent phases of activity. A small number of differently-aligned features are presumably earlier in date, included a north-east to south-west aligned ditch in the south-east corner of the site that is recorded as having been similar to the possible ring-ditch.
Possible pits were recorded in a number of trenches, along with two probable post-holes. The pits were mostly unremarkable features and it is possible that at least some were of natural origin. The fragment of potentially Roman brick or tile was the only find recovered from any of the discrete features investigated.
Samples taken from a number of features produced little apart from charcoal, which was only abundant in one of the pits.
See report (S1) for further details.
An archive associated with this work has been deposited with Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2019.214).
P. Watkins (HES), 1 June 2021. Amended 9 December 2022.