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The Norfolk Archaeological & Historical Research Group
Norfolk Archaeological & Historical Research Group N.A.H.R.G. Text Box: Q60 INDEX

NAHRG was asked by David Gurney and the Mapping Project team at Gressenhall to look at a field in Scottow beside Coltishall runway, where a collection of cropmarks looked interesting. (Fig 1.)

Running east-west close to the southern field boundary was a line identified on the OS map as the Roman road but this had not been proved east of central Norfolk. Running north-south down this field and its neighbour to the south aerial photographs revealed the lines of five ditches of unknown origin so dating was of interest. The same aerial photographs show that crossing the two fields diagonally is a series of enclosures with two ditches running into the most north-easterly one. They are clearly not associated with the Roman road; if they had been the Roman road would meet the long side and form a through route to the other side and on across the countryside. They are aligned at an angle so the Roman road would not have met the centre of a long side.

During August 2003 fieldwalking and metal-detecting began on both fields as we began work. There was no concentration of activity from any period including the Roman one, but the survey did recover flints from the Neolithic and early Bronze Age as well as pottery from the Roman period onwards. We dug three trenches, in what became Area A. Trench 1 and 3 were placed across the alignment of the Roman road and Trench 2 would hopefully pick up one of the north-south ditches. The Roman road was about half a metre below the plough soil so had been subjected to considerable plough damage and farm-workers told us of removing many stones from the end nearer the present road. Trench 1 across the Roman road uncovered an insubstantial road structure but the ditches to either side were excavated, they are over 1 metre wide and 1 metre deep. However thanks to a resistivity survey by a NAHRG member Peter Carnell we found a clear section of the Roman road in Trench 3. Due to unidentified machine action in the past, part of the road surface had been partly carved through so we were able to excavate a small section down through it. The road is about 10m wide and together with the ditches to either side the trenches were about 12m long. Trench 3 running between these trenches did not uncover one of the north-south ditches but picked up more of the northern ditch beside the Roman road.

This field is very difficult to excavate since the features are almost impossible to distinguish from the surrounding soil except in certain conditions, preferably heavy rain, when it also becomes a quagmire and therefore unsafe to work. At the end of the first season we found ourselves back- filling on the hottest days of that summer.

Bad weather made returning in 2004 impossible since despite his best efforts, the farmer was unable to get his crop off the field so we returned in August 2005.

We returned to Area A where calculations by the Mapping Team suggested we should site Trench 4 to pick up one of the ditches. More resistivity work identified one of them in this trench which we later extended to the west hoping to pick up another of these ditches but failed to do so. We put three sections across this ditch; the northerly one provided the ditch profile which proved to be about 1 metre wide and deep. In the central section considerable animal activity reflected that the ditch provided small mammals with the easiest way to travel. In the most southerly section we found the construction sequence we needed; the north-south ditch was cut by the ditch of the Roman road, proving that the north-south ditch pre-dated the Roman road.

At the east end of the field in Area B we were hampered by bales of hay still on the field despite them having been sold to another farmer. Setting out the grid here, and the difficulty in obtaining resistivity readings, meant that we also had to work from the aerial photographs to site the trench over the junction of the enclosure and the diagonal ditch running into it.

It was not until a digger was brought in thanks to another member, Matthew Champion, that we were able to find this ditch and the trench was extended to the west and south to follow the line of it. Although it seemed that we had found the junction with the enclosure it was not realised until the last few days that we had not done so and we concluded that it was another 8 to 10m nearer the field boundary. This ditch was only visible in the sections, having ‘disappeared’ from the baulks until we had two days rain. It was a big ditch originally, its full width exceeding 1.10m, probably reaching 1.30m and its depth disappearing into natural sands at about 0.85m, or 1.20m below the top of the plough soil.

No dating evidence was recovered from any of the ditches excavated in 2005, pottery recovered from the north-south ditch in Trench 4 was almost all Victorian, leading us to doubt that it might be pre-Roman, but the considerable animal activity was probably responsible for finding it well down in the ditch. Nothing was recovered from Trench 5 except for occasional undiagnostic flint tools.

We think the enclosures revealed in the aerial photographs are all prehistoric but cannot date them to a given period. Despite losing several half-days to rain in 2005 we managed to satisfy the main queries, that the ditches are prehistoric and the Roman Road is correctly labelled on the OS map of this part of east Norfolk. In confirming the existence of the east/west Roman road and proving that the north/south ditch pre-dated the Roman road we have successfully completed the task initially set us and therefore 2005 has been our final year at Scottow.

I should like to publicly express my sincere thanks to all our excavators especially the hardy souls who toiled in the searing heat of 2003 and to all who reappeared with equal enthusiasm to dig in 2005 when sometimes it seemed more like winter.

Excavations at Scottow 2003 & 2005

Excavation Director, Judy Sims