NHER 66647 (Monument record) - Medieval and undated remains

June 2016. Trial Trenching.
Evaluation of proposed development site.
The nine trenches excavated revealed a number of scattered linear and discrete features, several of which produced small quantities of medieval pottery. These potentially medieval features all lay in the southernmost part of the site and included a large pit or ditch terminus, a substantial north-to-south aligned ditch and an adjacent much shallow linear feature. Samples taken from the pit and the ditch both produced rich assemblages of charred macrofossils, with the range of cereal grains and weed seeds present typical for the medieval period. Free threshing wheat was the dominant crop type represented, although oat, hulled barley and rye grains were also present. The only other feature identified in this part of the site was a small pit which produced only a single iron nail of medieval or post-medieval date. A sample from its fill was found to contain a large quantity of charcoal but little else in the way of plant remains.
Also of possible interest was what appeared to be a substantial north-east to south-west aligned linear feature exposed in the northernmost part of the site, close to The Street. No finds were recovered from this feature, which was sealed by layer containing frequent modern rubbish. It is tentatively suggested that this might represent the northern arm of a medieval moated enclosure, the western arm of which was potentially formed by the perpendicular elongated pond to the south-west. This interpretation was supported by the discovery of a large feature immediately to the north of the extant pond, although it should be noted that this was relatively shallow and apparently entirely filled with a modern deposit similar to that overlying the linear feature to the east. A trench excavated within what would have been the interior of this putative enclosure revealed only a single post-hole, which contained a brick of medieval or post-medieval date.
Unstratified finds were limited to a small assemblage of medieval to post-medieval pottery sherds.
See report (S1) for further details.
The archive associated with this work has been deposited with Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2016.390).
P. Watkins (HES), 29 December 2022.