NHER 65230 (Monument record) - Undated post-holes and ditches and medieval to modern finds

January 2016. Trial Trenching.
Evaluation of proposed development site.
This field lies immediately adjacent to where an extensive Early Saxon cemetery was uncovered between 2012 and 2015. It was clear that the cemetery extended into the south-east corner of this field so the primary focus of this work was to establish the extent and density of the burials present. Two groups of trenches were excavated, three at the southern end of the site (Trenches 6-8, recorded under NHER 28915) and six to the north (Trenches 1-5 and 9).
Although dense groups of probable burials were recorded in all three of the southernmost trenches none were identified in the trenches excavated across the remainder of the field. These trenches revealed only sparse, scattered remains, including several linear features and a number of probable post-holes – none of which produced any dating evidence. The majority of the post-holes lay within a trench towards the centre of the field, where several distinct clusters of varying size and shape were recorded. One of these clusters comprised a ‘horseshoe’-shaped arrangement of post-holes but there was no obvious pattern to the other groups. There was also nothing to suggest that any of these features were associated with substantial structures. Samples taken from several post-holes were found to contain charcoal but little else in the way of plant macrofossils apart from single six-row barley and wheat grains and spelt wheat glume bases. It is tentatively suggested that the presence of the latter might indicate a later prehistoric or Roman date for these features.
Three ditches were identified, two of which were regarded as probably medieval or post-medieval due to their north-to-south and east-to-west alignments. One produced several pieces of animal bone that were all in good condition and therefore unlikely to be of great antiquity. A north-west to south-east aligned ditch at the southern end of the site was probably associated with an earlier phase of activity.
There was no trace of the large east-to-west aligned ditch recorded during the main excavation to the east (NHER 28915), although this is almost certainly due to the fact that the projected line of this feature coincides with the gap between the two groups of trenches. This work does at least therefore support the suggested line for this feature and its potentially association with similarly-aligned ditches recorded to the west of site in 2000 (NHER 35777).
Unstratified finds included a small number of medieval and modern pottery sherds, a modern glass bottle, an Elizabethan silver coin and a variety of other, medieval to modern metal objects. The metal finds include a medieval bar mount; a medieval/post-medieval lead musket ball or weight; post-medieval copper alloy buttons, buckle, wire loop dress fastener, spoon, stud, ?seed drill cup, copper alloy weight, lead musket ball, lead mount/button, lead cloth seal and a post-medieval/modern silver cross ?pendant and buckle.
See report (S1) for further details.
The archive associated with this work has been deposited with the Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2017.323).
P. Watkins (HES), 3 August 2021.