Monument record WLB 092 - Possible Medieval to post-medieval doles related to peat cutting

January 2015. Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Beauty National Mapping Programme.
Former doles, presumably from peat cutting, are visible across a large proportion of the Westwood Marshes, as earthworks and vegetation marks on aerial photographs (S4-S6), and they have been mapped as three separate extents of area, although their true extent may be greater. These would have been shallow workings used to extract surface peat deposits in the medieval or post medieval period. Their extent has been mapped by the NMP, although this is not entirely certain as some of the features could relate to drainage rather than peat cutting, or to the possible common division gullies recorded to the north (SHER WLB 065). What proportion of the doles still survive as earthworks is unclear.
E. Ford (Norfolk Historic Environment Service), 22nd January 2015.