Monument record EKE 031 - Rectilinear enclosures and trackways of possible Iron Age to Roman date

May 2015. Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Beauty National Mapping Programme.
The site of rectilinear enclosures and trackways of possible Iron Age to Roman date are recorded from aerial photographs (S1-S7) and geophysical survey (S8). The morphology of the enclosures and tracks would suggest an Iron Age to Roman date, although both the surveys indicate multi-phase activity in this area. Finds in this area clearly indicate Roman activity (EKE 019), although prehistoric material was also recovered from this area (S8).
A magnetometer survey of this area previously recorded a curvilinear trackway and a series of rectilinear enclosures (S8). Some of these cropmarks were previously recorded in an earlier aerial photograph survey (S9). The NMP mapping is consistent with this evidence (however it must be noted that the fragmentary parts of the slightly sinuous trackway visible on the aerial photographs might have been interpreted as being a natural feature and not archaeological on the aerial photograph evidence alone). The cropmarks relating to the rectilinear enclosure and associated ditches were extremely fragmentary and faint, but the correlation with the geophysics, meant that a degree of confidence could be attributed to features that might not normally have been mapped. The mapping would suggest a possible continuation of these tracks and enclosures into the field to the west. Although given the proximity to the wetter ground and the clay soil it is possible that some of these parallel linears are in fact drains.
S. Horlock (Norfolk Historic Environment Service), 27th May 2015.