NHER 65569 (Monument record) - Medieval and undated features

April 2014. Desk-based Assessment.
Assessment of proposed development site (Phase 3).
Faden’s map of 1797 (S1) suggests that this site lay at the north-eastern corner of an area of common land known as West Carr. At this time Carver’s Lane did not turn to the south at this location, but continued on roughly the same course - forming one of two route ways across the common (the other being West Carr Road to the south). Dwellings are shown to either side of this road at the point where it enters the north-east corner of the common. It is clear from a much more detailed map of 1812 (S2) that at least one of the houses to the north of the road lay within the westernmost part of the site in question. The land to the east is shown to be subdivided into a series of sub-rectangular fields of roughly equal size.
See report (S3) for further details.
P. Watkins (HES), 17 May 2022.

June 2015. Trial Trenching.
Evaluation of proposed development site (Phase 3; Trenches 9-12)
The four trenches excavated at this location revealed a number of ditches and several possible pits. A small assemblage of medieval pottery was recovered, the bulk of which (20 sherds) came from a series of roughly parallel north-east to south-west aligned ditches at the south-western end of the site. The orientation of these ditches suggests they may well have been associated with a common-edge boundary, as they would have run parallel to the original course of Carver’s Lane (see notes above). The remaining ditches were all aligned north-north-west to south-south-east. These features produced a small number of medieval pottery sherds, although this material could well be residual. A number of these features cut the potentially medieval ditches at the south-western end of the site and their alignments are very similar to the field boundaries shown on the 1812 map. Ultimately, it is only possible to suggest a broad, medieval-to-post-medieval date for these features.
The possible pits recorded were all fairly unremarkable features, one of which produced a single medieval pottery sherd.
Samples taken from these features all produced charcoal and very small quantities of charred cereal grain. A number of animal bones were also recovered.
A small number of Late Saxon, medieval, medieval/post-medieval and post-medieval pottery sherds were recovered from unstratified contexts during this work. The majority of these probably came from the trenches at this location, although their exact context isn’t recorded, so it is possible that some came from the site to the south (NHER 65569).
Information from report uploaded to OASIS. HER copy awaited.
The archive associated with this work has been deposited with Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2017.599).
P. Watkins (HES), 17 May 2022.