NHER 65553 (Monument record) - Multi-period remains and evidence for Roman or later metal working

August-October 2015. Trial Trenching.
Evaluation of proposed development site (Trenches 126-158).
The 33 trenches excavated at this location revealed only a small number of scattered features, including several possible pits, a large hollow and two ditches.
A pit in the centre of the site was potentially prehistoric, being found to contain several sherds of handmade pottery and fragments of at least one cylindrical loomweight. The pottery was only broadly datable as Late Prehistoric but the loomweight is of a type typically seen as Bronze Age. The remaining pits were all undated, with finds limited to a small number of prehistoric worked flints. The flints recovered from these and other features lacked any truly diagnostic features but are mostly of probable Middle Bronze Age to Iron Age date.
The one other discrete feature of note was a large, irregular hollow exposed in the southern half of the site. This produced a single sherd of Roman pottery, four sherds of Late Saxon pottery and a glazed roof tile of early post-medieval date. Investigation of this feature revealed what appeared to be an earlier pit, the upper fill of which produced a single sherd of Late Saxon pottery and a small quantity of smithing slag. A sample from this deposit was also found to contain fragments of both flake and spheroidal hammerscale, indicating that the metal working had probably been taking place somewhere in the vicinity.
The two ditches were encountered in the southern half of the site, where they both corresponded with former field boundaries depicted on the Wymondham tithe map (S1). Finds recovered from these features included part of a clay tobacco pipe, wine bottle bases and fragments of post-medieval ceramic building material.
It is recorded that no subsoil deposit was present in this area, with plough scars visible on the surface of natural geology.
Information from report uploaded to OASIS. HER copy awaited.
P. Watkins (HES), 20 April 2022.

April-May 2016. Excavation.
This final phase of archaeological mitigation saw the excavation of a single small area in this field (Area 4), which targeted the large hollow revealed by the preceding trial trenching.
This feature was shown to be up to 2.2m deep and was almost certainly an infilled quarry pit. Additional finds recovered included a small quantity of Roman pottery and pieces of animal bone and fired clay. A single fragment of human neonate skull was also found. There was again clear evidence for metal-working in the vicinity of the pit, with a large assemblage of smithing slag recovered and a notable quantity of hammerscale present in the samples taken from this feature. Metal-working debris was also recovered from a group of small pits and post-holes adjacent to the large hollow, with one producing further smithing slag and a sample from another found to contain more than 2000 pieces of hammerscale. These were therefore clearly at least broadly contemporary with the quarry pit, although the only datable find recovered was a single sherd of Late Saxon pottery. The main pit is regarded as probably Roman, although the amount of pottery recovered is too small to confidently date such a large feature, particularly given that it also produced Late Saxon and post-medieval material. It is though also noted that a Roman date is more likely for the metal-working debris itself. The presence of the remains of an infant within such a feature is also consistent with what we know of Roman attitudes towards children that died at such a young age.
The only other feature of note revealed by this excavation was an east-to-west aligned ditch. This was almost certainly a much more recent feature as it produced a single sherd of post-medieval pottery and was parallel to one of the former field boundaries present in the 19th century.
See final report (S2) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 20 April 2022.