Monument record BML 048 - Cropmarks of undated enclosures and boundaries or drains

August 2015. Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Beauty National Mapping Programme.
The site of cropmarks, soilmarks and some slight earthworks relating to an area of enclosures, boundary ditches and/or drains, trackways and a possible mound or building platform is visible on aerial photographs (S1-S2). The site is located in extremely close proximity to the current course of the River Deben, indicating that many of these ditches will have performed a drainage function. However the plan of the site would appear too elaborate and complex for it to relate to drainage ditches alone.
Some elements of the site have a relationship with boundaries and drains depicted on the Ordnance Survey First Edition map (S3) and this could therefore suggest a medieval date or later date for the ditches. However Roman date material has been found in close proximity to these cropmarks (MTN 005). Morphologically the cropmarks could relate to either period, or feasibly even a site of earlier and later prehistoric date. Given the positioning and relationship to other landscape features a medieval date seems most likely for the main phase of features.
S. Horlock (Norfolk Historic Environment Service), 28th August 2015.