NHER 65274 (Monument record) - Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age pit and undated ditch

November 2013. Desk-based Assessment.
Heritage Statement produced for proposed underground electrical cable connecting solar park at West Raynham Airfield to a grid connection west of Hempton.
See report (S1) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 2 February 2022.

July-August 2014. Watching Brief and Strip Map and Sample Excavation.
Archaeological mitigation work undertaken during installation of underground electrical cable for West Raynham Solar Park.
No archaeologically-significant features or deposits were observed during the stripping of this section of the cable route easement.
The subsequent excavation of a narrower trench for the cable itself revealed a prehistoric pit and a single ditch.
The pit was a shallow feature that contained more than 200 pottery sherds of probable Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age pottery, more than 100 worked flints and a substantial quantity of burnt flint. At least some of the worked flint assemblage appears to have been residual, with several Mesolithic/Early Neolithic blades and small flake core of probable Neolithic date present alongside pieces that could potentially be of a similar date to the pottery. Much of the burnt flint was not fully calcined, having instead been heated at a relatively low temperature (resulting in a reddish discolouration). A small proportion of the worked flints had also been burnt. A sample taken from the fill of this feature produced no plant macrofossils other than wood charcoal, which was derived from a variety of species, including oak, cherry, willow/poplar and elm (and therefore likely to represent waste from a domestic hearth).
The ditch was an undated north-west to south-east aligned feature that appeared to be cut into the top of a similarly-aligned palaeochannel.
See report (S2) for further details.
The archive associated with this work has been deposited with Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2016.203).
P. Watkins (HES), 2 February 2022.