Crown Farm, Mill Road, West Walton, Norfolk. Monitoring of Works Under Archaeological Supervision and Control

The monitoring of groundworks for the construction of an agricultural building, consisted of the observation and recording of a full site strip of the building footprint and subsequent excavation of pits for pad foundations. All groundworks were carried out by the building contractor with a mechanical excavator and a toothless ditching bucket, under close archaeological supervision. The monitoring of groundworks, consisting of a full site strip of the building footprint and subsequent excavation of pits for pad foundations, simply identified a modern topsoil and localised made-ground deposits likely associated with modern landscaping and construction of the existing adjacent house and/or former outbuildings, overlying an apparent sterile and homogenous subsoil extending to a depth of 0.9m+ below ground-level. This subsoil deposit is likely to actually be the material of a substantial mound, known to extend northwest from the 'Sea Bank' (a probable late Saxon and medieval earthen bank built for sea defence), which is believed to either be a breakwater associated with the Sea Bank or a saltern mound. The monitoring however did not identify any further archaeological features or artefactual material to enable any subsequent interpretation of the date, form or function of the mound.