NHER 68147 (Monument record) - Medieval and later soils and Late Saxon to modern finds

June 2016. Watching Brief.
Maintained during excavation of new wildlife pond.
The deepest part of this pond was dug to a depth of c.1.1m below ground level, revealing a sequence of soil deposits. What was potentially a natural gravelly sand was only exposed in a small part of the trench. The earliest of the soil layers produced two Late Saxon pottery sherds, along with a single sherd of late medieval/early post-medieval pottery (possible intrusive). A sample from this deposit was found to contain charcoal, along with small quantities of material that potentially represents kitchen waste, including a charred cereal grain, bone fragments, fish bones and marine mollusc shell. It is therefore possible that from quite early on this was a garden area in which hearth and kitchen waste was being deliberately deposited as a soil improver. This soil was overlain by two further dark brown silty sand deposits, the uppermost of which contained frequent mortar inclusions, along with fragments of medieval brick and floor tile. This material lay beneath the present topsoil.
Although a variety of finds were recovered during the excavation of the remainder of the pond it wasn't possible to relate these to the layers recorded in the initial trench. These unstratified finds include Late Saxon, medieval, late medieval/early post-medieval, post-medieval and post-medieval/modern pottery sherds; medieval brick, floor tile and roof tile fragments; post-medieval roof tile fragments; post-medieval clay tobacco pipe stems; a piece of post-medieval bottle glass; a post-medieval iron padlock; a post-medieval stylus or pencil lead; an undatable unidentified copper alloy object and fragments of animal bone.
See report (S1) for further details.
An associated archive has been deposited with Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2016.368).
P. Watkins (HES), 6 March 2023.