Land South of Foresters Avenue, Hilgay, Norfolk

Between 6th and 8th February 2023 Oxford Archaeology East carried out an archaeological trial trench evaluation on land to the south of Foresters Avenue, Hilgay, Norfolk. In total, six trenches were excavated, all of which contained archaeological features. An east-west aligned Late Bronze Age boundary ditch was identified to the north (Trenches 1 and 4), whilst to the south, a post-medieval boundary ditch crossed Trenches 1, 3 and 6 on a west-south-west to east-north-east alignment. A possibly earlier boundary, on a south-west to north-east alignment, was identified in Trench 5. In addition, an isolated, undated posthole was revealed in Trench 3 and two probable medieval agricultural furrows were identified in Trench 2. A small assemblage of artefacts and ecofacts was recovered from Trenches 1-3 in the western part of the site. A Bronze Age spindlewhorl and a sherd of Late Bronze Age pottery were recovered from the later prehistoric ditch in Trench 1. The recut post-medieval ditch alignment in Trenches 2 and 3 yielded a sherd of 16th-18th century pottery and five fragments of animal bone along with a residual flint and Late Bronze Age pottery sherd. Environmental evidence included poorly preserved remains of a grass seed and rare charcoal from the Late Bronze Age ditch and a small quantity of cereal grains from the post-medieval boundary ditch. The Late Bronze Age finds and ditch adds to the corpus of findspots of the period discovered at Hilgay and suggests a focus of Late Bronze Age settlement lies in the near vicinity.