NHER 66588 (Monument record) - Post-medieval and undated ditches

August-September 2012. Watching Brief.
Monitoring of widening of existing drain and excavation of adjacent new dyke as part of Broadland Flood Alleviation Project (Compartment 6a).
Six probable ditches were recorded, all in the eastern half of the site, between TG 43262190 and TG 43492182. It is noted that just one was initially visible – the others only became apparent once the sides of the widened drain and new dyke had weathered. The westernmost was aligned north-west to south-east and therefore potentially associated with a number of similarly aligned cropmarks likely to represent field boundaries of uncertain date that are visible on aerial photographs of the land to the north (NHER 43740). The other six probable ditches were all aligned north-east to south-west. These included a feature at TG 4332 2189 that was potentially associated with one of a number of probable post-medieval drainage ditches visible on aerial photographs of the land to the south (NHER 27288). The easternmost of these north-east to south-west aligned features appears to have coincided with a similarly-aligned former field boundary depicted on the Hickling tithe map of 1842 (S1). This was the only feature recorded in the new dyke, all of the others were identified in the sides of the widened drain to the north (suggesting they potentially terminated close to the point they were observed).
See report (S2) for further details.
An archive associated with this work has been deposited with Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2022.14).
P. Watkins (HES), 30 March 2023.