Monument record STN 116 - Possible post medieval water meadows and/or osier beds

November 2017. 'Brecks from Above' and Breckland National Mapping Programme.
A complex arrangement of ditches or drains, visible as earthworks on imagery from a 2015 lidar survey (S1) and located on the southern bank of the Little Ouse, may represent former water meadows and/or osier beds of post medieval date. The earthworks have also been noted as possible water meadows by Professor Tom Williamson of University of East Anglia (personal communication). Two blocks are evident, both similar in nature although different in layout, divided by the county and parish boundary; in Norfolk they are recorded as NHER 61566. Instead of representing water meadows, the earthworks could relate to the osier bed referred to in documents relating to Thetford warren (S2; information from A. Mason). Alternatively, the earthworks could simply relate to land drainage, perhaps undertaken in advance of the area being planted with conifers.
S. Tremlett (Norfolk Historic Environment Service), 27th November 2017.