NHER 65245 (Monument record) - Multi-period prehistoric pits, potentially prehistoric ditches, Middle-Late Saxon charcoal pits and other, undated remains

October 2010-April 2011. Trial Trenching.
Excavation of trench at proposed site for directional drilling pit on route of Earlham Grid to Norwich Main Underground Diversion cable (Trench 6).
This trench in the north-west corner of the field revealed no archaeologically-significant features or deposits.
No finds were recovered.
A subsoil deposit was present.
See report (S1) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 20 March 2021.

March-September 2012. Watching Brief.
Monitoring of groundworks associated with installation of underground electricity cable along western edge of field (Area 1). Although the easement was stripped without archaeological supervision it was possible to monitor the excavation of the cable trench itself.
A large post-medieval pit filled with brick rubble was recorded. No subsoil was present at this location.
The only unstatified find recovered was a fragment of burnt flint.
See report (S2) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 9 August 2021.

March 2013. Desk-based Assessment.
Assessment of large proposed development area.
See report (S3) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 19 November 2018.

March 2013. Geophysical Survey. Sectors 5 and 7.
Magnetometer survey of large proposed development area.
No anomalies of obvious archaeological significance were identified within these two fields.
This region exhibited a high degree of small, discrete areas of enhanced magnetic responses indicative of compositional changes in the soils. This effect may have prevented any archaeological features from being detected.
Weak linear trends within the data have been interpreted as the results of modern cultivation and a large area of magnetic disturbance along the south-western edge of the survey area was caused by the presence of an electricity pylon.
See reports (S4) and (S5) for further information.
Previously recorded under NHER 40940.
H. Hamilton (HES), 30 March 2015. Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 11 August 2021.

September-October 2018. Trial Trenching.
Evaluation of part of large proposed development area (Fields 2-4; Trenches 48-121).
The 74 trenches excavated at this location revealed a low density scatter of linear and discrete features, the majority of which produced little or no dating evidence. The notable exceptions included several prehistoric features likely to represent activity during multiple past periods. The earliest of these appeared to be a pit in the south-east corner of the site that was found to contain a small, crude flint axehead of possible Early Neolithic date, a small assemblage of other, potentially contemporary worked flints and a large quantity of burnt flint. A sample from this feature produced small quantities of hazel nutshell and charcoal but little else of note.
A single grog-tempered sherd of possible Late Neolithic/Bronze Age date was found in an otherwise undated ditch in the south-west part of the site but no other finds of this date were recovered.
A nearby pit produced a small assemblage of pottery tentatively dated as Bronze Age/Early Iron Age and a small number of potentially contemporary worked flints. A sample from this feature produced a small number of possible wheat caryopses, along with unidentifiable cereal grain fragments.
The most securely dated of the prehistoric features was a pit in the south-west corner of the site that produced 32 sherds of Early Iron Age pottery and a small number of worked flints. A sample from this feature produced charcoal and charred seeds but little else in the way of charred plant macrofossils. Small amounts of potentially Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age pottery were also recovered from two ditches close to this feature and from an isolated pit in the northern half of the site.
The more notable undated remains included a number of widely-dispersed discrete features described as 'fire pits'. These were all sub-circular with shallow, bowl-shaped profiles, charcoal-rich fills and sporadically heat-reddened margins. These are very similar to features seen elsewhere that are now regarded as potentially associated with post-Roman charcoal production. Samples taken from these features produced nothing apart from frequent charcoal fragments (much identifiable as oak), which is consistent with this interpretation.
A particularly large feature at the western edge of the site contained brick and a coal fragments and was probably an infilled quarry pit of late post-medieval or modern date.
The alignments of the ditches were mostly markedly different from those of the extant and recently removed field boundaries in the vicinity, suggesting they were associated with activity that predated the establishment of the present field system. The exceptions were four earth-north-east to west-south-west aligned linear features, including a ditch that corresponds with a former field boundary depicted on the Cringleford tithe map of 1842 (S6) and two shallow gullies that produced post-medieval to modern finds. As at the site to the east (NHER 40940) the potentially earlier ditches included a number of north-north-east to south-south-west aligned ditches, along with several perpendicular features. One of the latter appears to have corresponded with a linear geophysical anomaly recorded in the south-east corner of the site.
The small number of unstatified finds recovered included a small number of post-medieval to modern metal objects.
See report (S7) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 12 August 2021.

February 2019. Excavation.
This final phase of work saw the excavation of two relatively small areas at the southern end of the site, both of which targeted prehistoric features recorded during the preceding evaluation.
The first excavation area (Area 2) was centred on the potentially Neolithic pit that had been exposed in the south-east corner of the site. This revealed three discrete features and a north-north-east to south-south-west aligned ditch, all of which were potentially prehistoric. Two additional small pits were recorded, one of which produced a small assemblage of potentially Neolithic/Bronze Age worked flints and the other a small number of Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age Grooved Ware pottery sherds, plus a small assemblage of fired clay. Grooved Ware pottery was also recovered from an adjacent amorphous hollow of possible natural origin, along with Beaker sherds, undiagnostic pottery sherds of probable Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age date, an assemblage of 72 potentially contemporary worked flints and a moderate amount of burnt flint. A similar quantity of Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age pottery was also recovered from the ditch, suggesting that this was potentially a prehistoric feature. Given the level of prehistoric activity in the vicinity it is possible that this material was residual, although, as noted above, ditches on this alignment are those most likely to be associated with early phases of activity.

The second excavation area (Area 3) was positioned to coincide with the Early Iron Age pit that had been identified in the south-west corner of the site. This revealed two additional pit features and three ditches (one aligned north-to-south and the others north-north-east to south-south-west). The larger of the two pits was found to contain more than 50 Early Iron Age pottery sherds, with a sample also producing fragments of fired clay and burnt flint (though nothing significant in the way of charred plant macrofossils). Significantly, this feature appeared to truncate the easternmost ditch. This ditch also produced several pottery sherds of Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age date and small number of similar sherds were also recovered from the two converging ditches recorded to the west. All of these features and both pits also produced small numbers of worked flints, the majority of which are relatively crude pieces that are potentially contemporary with the pottery.

A programme of radiocarbon dating undertaken following the excavations saw material submitted from several of the features investigated during the preceding evaluation. These included the pit that had produced pottery of possible Bronze Age/Early Iron Age date, although hazel nutshell from this feature actually produced a Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age date of 2457-2201 cal BC at 95% probability (SUERC-88493; 3838 +/- 30 BP). This disparity is difficult to account for, although it should be noted that the pottery assemblage consisted mostly of small fragments recovered from a sample, with nothing particularly diagnostic present.
Charcoal samples from two of the 'fire pits' returned Middle-Late Saxon dates of 776-975 AD at 95% probability (SUERC-88491; 1145 +/- 30 BP) and 721-945 AD at 95% probability (SUERC-88492; 1191 +/- 30 BP). These features were therefore clearly related to the identical pits revealed at sites to the east and south (NHERs 40940 and 63100), a number of which also produced Middle to Late Saxon and Late Saxon radiocarbon dates. Radiocarbon dating has also demonstrated that similar features uncovered around the same time to the north-west were probably of a broadly similar age, although the combined date range for these is slightly broader (see NHER 60815). It is therefore highly likely that the pits at these various sites were associated with the same charcoal industry, with the main phase of activity most likely occurring during the Middle-Late Saxon period.
See report (S8) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 12 August 2021.

A combined archive comprising material from the 2018 and 2019 phases of work has been deposited with Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2018.243).
P. Watkins (HES), 12 July 2023.