Monument record BUT 004 - Field boundaries and trackways of unknown date, visible as cropmarks. (Un)

A number of possible ditched field boundaries and trackways are visible on aerial photographs as cropmarks located some 300m to the south east of Neutral farm, Butley parish, centred on circa TM37575080. The cropmarks are quite subtle, and in places are quite difficult to distinguish from 'background' geological features. The cropmarks also cross a number of field boundaries, both existing and former, and are visible in fields with crops at different stages of growth. This means that the cropmarks are somewhat fragmentary. They are generally aligned in a south-west to north-east direction, significantly different to the current Post Medieval enclosure system which may suggest that they are of prehistoric or Roman date. A possible small oval enclosure measuring about 5 by 3m can also be seen as a cropmark at circa TM37575097. (S1)

November 2015. Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Beauty National Mapping Programme.
Additional cropmarks are visible on aerial photographs (S1) to those previously mapped, which would indicate a more extensive area of enclosures, boundaries and trackways forming a field system – potentially of coaxial pattern. Due to time pressures only those cropmarks within or immediately adjacent to the AONB project area have been included within the mapping. The extent of the monument polygon has been extended to include the main area of cropmarks visible on (S1). As suggested above the appearance and orientation of the enclosures and field systems would suggest a prehistoric or Roman date and field systems with similar characteristics have increasingly been recognised as potentially being Bronze Age in date in southern England (S2). Finds in the area include substantial amounts of Bronze Age pottery and metalwork (BUT 004, 006-007), but also Iron Age (BUT 017) and Saxon (BUT 004, BUT 015). The relatively high amounts of Bronze Age surface material in close vicinity to these cropmarks could indeed suggest a Bronze Age date for many of these cropmarks, although it is likely that more than one phase is present.
S. Horlock (Norfolk Historic Environment Service), 25th November 2015.