NHER 68903 (Monument record) - Post-medieval brick-production waste and late post-medieval/modern remains

March 2018-February 2019. Watching Brief.
Monitoring of groundworks associated with construction of six new residential dwellings.
The ground was found to be severely waterlogged below a depth of c.1m below the present surface, with laminated silts the earliest deposits exposed in the majority of the footing and soakaway trenches excavated. These deposits were fairly sterile, aside from a small number of medieval to post-medieval brick and tile fragments. Deeper excavations at the site of a Foul Water Pumping Station exposed a near-black, organic-smelling silt which potentially related to an east-to-west aligned former watercourse that can be seen on 17th- and 18th-century plans of the site.
The most notable discovery was an extensive spread of loosely consolidated brick fragments, some of which were vitrified and distorted. This material incorporated bricks of probable 18th-century date and was likely to represent waste from nearby brick kilns – most likely one or both of those shown on Faden’s 1797 plan of King’s Lynn (S1), within the former bastions of the Civil War defences. This brick waste was partly sealed by an intermittent spread of material containing 19th-century rubble and ash. This was in turn overlain by allotment soils and modern levelling make-up deposits. Narrow clay drains encountered at the interface of the probable 18th-century deposits and the later soils represented the first attempts to properly improve the drainage of the site.
A number of waterlogged features of 19th- to early 20th-century date were recorded, many of which contained large quantities of cockle shell.
Apart from a small number of residual medieval brick and tile fragments the finds recovered were all of either post-medieval or post-medieval to modern date. This later material included pottery sherds, pieces of clay tobacco pipe, brick and tile fragments, an illegible coin or token and a buckle.
See report (S2) for further details.
An archive associated with this work has been deposited with Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : 2019.118).
P. Watkins (HES), 3 February 2025.