The Early Iron Age Site at Micklemoor Hill West Harling, Norfolk, and its Pottery

Abstract

The Iron Age settlement on Micklemoor Hill, West Harling, (Nat. Grid 62/975857) was discovered by Mr H. Apling while prospecting for Bronze Age cooking-places on the course of the river above Thetford during 1932. The site is a prominent hill of glacial gravel approximately 300 yards long and 150 yards wide, rising some 20 feet above the level of the surrounding marsh and rough grazing pasture and bounded to the north at a distance of between 200 and 600 feet by the river Thet. Its most prominent feature at the present day is a mound covering a brick-lined ice-house of 19th century construction and surrounded by a group of conifers. The prehistoric features discovered by Apling comprised two enclosures, an ‘Eastern Camp’ (our Site II), consisting of a low broad bank with external ditch and well defined opening on the west, and a larger ‘Western Camp’ (our Site III) of which only slight traces of a ditch were visible.The excavations carried out by Apling in 1932 were mainly directed to the eastern enclosure: in addition to a number of trial holes he dug two-foot trenches across the site from two directions. No pottery was found in the interior, but the ditch which he located outside the bank yielded pottery, bones and flints. Accordingly a length of some 20 yards of the ditch-filling was removed on the eastern side and from this a really substantial quantity of material was obtained.

A Late Bronze Age Landscape at South Hornchurch, Essex

“…Such pairings are not uncommon (eg, Mucking North and South Rings, 0.9 km apart; Great Baddow and Springfield Lyons, 2.8 km apart), though the paired sites need not be contemporaneous (Bond 1988). At West Harling, Norfolk, two small ringworks of a similar size to Hornchurch (c. 32 and 35 m in external diameter) were located just 38 m apart on a high gravel terrace above the river Thet (Clark & Fell 1953). Closer to Hornchurch, unexcavated cropmark sites at Thurrock, Essex (ECC Site Nos.…”

Where Eagles Dare: the Iron Age of Norfolk

“…Cunliffe has published a basic discussion of pottery styles (Cunliffe 1968). Excavations at West Harling (Clark & Fell 1953) and Fison Way (Gregory 1992a) provide descriptions of important sites at either end of the period. In recent years there have been numerous smaller scale excavations.…”

Flint‐working in the Metal Age

“…Wainwright and Longworth, 1971 Wainwright, 1979Wainwright, 1971Longworth, Wainwright, and Wilson, 1971Smith, 1965 Wainwright, 1979Clark, 1933Bradley, 1970Saville, 1980Saville, 1981bHealy, 1981Stone, 1936Bradley, 1972McAvoy, Morris and Smith, 1980Butcher, 1978Bradley and Ellison, 1975Fasham and Ross, 1978Kelly, 1967Kelly, 1967 Horsey and Shackley, 1980Clark and Fell, 1953 …”