NHER 65281 (Monument record) - ?Early Iron Age 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), 3 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 an east-to-west aligned ditch at c.TF 8958 2786. Although the recorded position of this ditch is close to a similarly-aligned former boundary depicted on 19th-century maps, it was found to contain several sherds of quartz-tempered prehistoric pottery – suggesting it was potentially much earlier in date. Although the pottery lacked any particularly diagnostic characteristics the fabric is very similar to that of an assemblage of Early Iron Age pottery recovered from a feature approximately 250m to the north (see NHER 65282).
No unstratified finds were recovered.
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), 3 February 2022.