Monument record BRS 014 - Triple post alignment, Barsham Marshes

Excavations of a soke dyke as part of flood alleviation works uncovered a number of worked timber posts, preserved within floodplain peat deposits at the edge of the River Waveney. Full excavation of an area of 25 x 8m was undertaken, revealing a total of 29 upright posts on a NNE to SSW alignment. A quantity of horse bones were also recovered to the south of the excavation area together with small quantities of burnt flint. A single radiocarbon date has shown the structure to be of Romano-British date, although the function remains unclear (S1).
Similar alignment found across river in Norfolk - see Norfolk HER for details.

The site is a triple post alignment of oak stakes built at the edgoe of a palaeochannel of the River Waveney. The alignment has been traced for over 30m but neither terminus of the site has been excavated. Dendrochronological dating of the timber has produced a range of felling dates between 8 BC and 8 AD indicating a late Iron Age date fro the structure. Palaeoenvironmenal analyses of the associated deposits indicate that the site was located at the edge of a shallow channel of the River Waveney with local aquatic and alder carr vegetation and evidence of more open scrub and pastoral environments in the wider landscape. This channel appears to have been infilled by the 11th century AD and is overlain by a thin layer of humified peat, corresponding to the uppermost level of preservation of the stakes. It is likely that any superstructure originally supported by the stakes had finally decomposed or been dismatled by this time (S2).