NHER 68127 (Monument record) - Potentially medieval and later ditches

March 2022. Watching Brief.
Monitoring of groundworks associated with construction of extension to existing residential dwelling (The Finches).
The footing trenches excavated revealed a seemingly sterile subsoil beneath the garden soil, suggesting this site had seen little significant past activity. Four ditches were recorded, the cuts of which were not visible within the subsoil layer. These included potentially contemporary north-to-south and east-to-west aligned features that both contained small amounts of medieval pottery. Other finds from these features included a fragment of animal bone, oyster and mussel shells, fragments of fired clay and a piece of iron slag. Lenses of ash were also noted in one of the ditches. The north-to-south aligned ditch was cut by two adjacent north-east to south-west aligned ditches that produced no finds but presumably represented a distinct, later phase of activity.
The westernmost footing trench exposed the buried remains of a late post-medieval brick structure – most likely part of the row of outbuildings shown at this location on the Ordnance Survey First Edition 25-inch map (S1).
Unstratified finds were limited to a post-medieval clay tobacco pipe stem, a late 19th-century brass military button (Coldstream Guards) and an amporphous piece of lead waste.
See report (S2) for further details.
An archive associated with this work has been deposited with Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2022.105).
P. Watkins (HES), 27 February 2024. Amended 27 April 2024.