Thetford Forest Archaeology

RESTORED FROM 2007 - THETFORD FOREST WEBSITE Restored to Live following 18 years dead and archived (some images are missing). May 17, 2026.

I took the photo above in 2010 using an old digital camera phone—a Sony Ericsson C510—at Two Mile Bottom, Thetford. I was out running with my old dogs across Thetford Forest when I spotted this flake of flint lying in the sand. I couldn't resist picking it up to take this photograph. It had been struck by a human knapper sometime in late prehistory. I used to see flakes of flint like this lying on the forest soils and sands all the time. After taking the picture, I returned it to the earth.

My Archaeology

I can remember being attracted to the distant past even as a boy. I find it strange that some people have absolutely no interest in it—though, then again, they probably find it just as odd that I have no interest in football. Horses for courses. I recall the 1970s, when my father's shop in the City of Norwich seemed surrounded by archaeological digs, and how I would peer through the fences into their excavation trenches. My life didn't go down that path, however; I drifted into adulthood, far away from a career in the heritage sector.

Years later, a couple of events pulled me back. The first occurred when I was around twenty. I visited Ireland on a fishing, photography, and drinking holiday with my big brother. Beyond the Guinness and Irish whiskey, I remember being profoundly moved by a visit to the Newgrange passage grave. I was struck by the sheer engineering of the stones—how the builders had managed to perfectly direct a shaft of light into the burial chamber to illuminate it on the winter solstice, when the sun aligned precisely. An American tourist in bright chequered shorts, also on the tour, was less impressed and loudly complained about the entry fee. Horses for courses.

The second event happened when I was a young, married agricultural worker living in a Norfolk farm cottage. Walking our collie dog through the local fields one day, I spotted a distinctively shaped stone on the ground, likely turned up by a recent hoe or plough. I took it to the local museum, where they confirmed my suspicion: it was the broken butt end of a Neolithic polished flint axe head.


At the time I was becoming increasingly involved in local politics, and other than occasionally browsing second hand bookshops for books on British Archaeology, I didn't take it any further.  However, in time, the politics all went sour, and I felt that I didn't want contact from people anymore.  It was easier to deal with long dead people.  I started looking for more flint artifacts.  I started identifying flakes, found some beautiful scrapers and piercers, treasured flint arrowheads.  I didn't want to become a collector though.  I wanted to do something more justifiable.  I started to search for unrecorded archaeological "sites" in Thetford Forest, and to submit them to the local government archaeologists for recording onto their sites & monuments records.  I signed up for a two year extra-mural course in Field Archaeology and Landscape History with the UEA.

Thetford Forest Archaeology Project

In 1997, I launched the Thetford Forest Archaeology Project—a one-man archaeological survey of disturbed soils within Thetford Forest. I received invaluable support from the archaeology departments of Suffolk County Council and Norfolk County Council, as well as local officers of the Forestry Commission.

Each year, I was supplied with maps detailing the specific forestry compartments scheduled for felling and restocking. During the restocking process, the soil surface would be broken. I surveyed these compartments to record the potential presence of unrecorded archaeological sites, such as earthworks or surface clusters.

More than that—and this was my own distinct approach to the fieldwork—I carefully measured and calculated the exact percentages of different artefacts within each designated area. These consisted of late prehistoric lithics (human-struck stone) categorized by type, alongside the presence and density of Roman and Medieval pot sherds.

Here is a gallery of images from my original Thetford Forest Archaeology website.



The above gallery is quite important to me.  Like a fool, I used a web host that deleted my website, when I failed one year to subscribe.  I had also lost my back up.  This is why the Posthaven policy attracted me here.  The majority of my old Thetford Forest Archaeology website could still be seen, using the wonderful Internet Archive Wayback Machine, that captured several sweeps of the website around 2006.  UPDATE 2026-05-17 I am currently attempting to resurrect the website on netlify. Many images are lost, but it's back live here: Thetford Forest Archaeology. Resurrected in 2026 after 18 years dead.

Getting back to survey, and what I was trying to accomplish:  Using spreadsheets, and very carefully mapping my surveyed areas (I was proud that I could provenance each find within ten metres using the National Grid Reference system), I would collate data such as the following example, from each survey:

Forest-walk 32.

Forestry Compartment Roudham 2045

Norfolk SMR - 34184

Parish - Roudham. Date - 14/02/99.

Survey Area - 2.94 ha. Sample Fraction - 11 %

Centre on TL 9480 8692

Soil - Methwold/Worlington - partly calcareous slope brown earths.

Relief - flat

Water - Little Ouse River 1.7 km; stream at Roudham DMV 600 metres.

Height OD - 25 to 30 metres.

Transects were spaced at 10 metres distance apart.

A few sherds of pottery, including one of Middle Saxon date, were collected here during an earthwork survey by Brian Cushion for the Forestry Commission. It was felt that the com­partment deserved a closer look.

1 sherd of ?Romano-British grey ware pottery

9 sherds of Medieval pottery (1 glazed, 8 unglazed).

2 sherds of Late Medieval / Early Post-medieval pottery.

1 crude flint scraper.BR>1 'nosed' flint scraper.

2 retouched flint flakes.

28 flint flakes.

147 burnt flints.

Background scatter of Post-medieval / Modern tile and brick fragments.

Although surrounded by the humps, hollows, and bars that are typical of gravel uplands and terraces in Breckland, the surveyed area is quite flat, and the soil is calcareous enough to deserve destumping. The light scatters of ceramics and rubbish from different periods suggests that the surveyed area has been cultivated and manured with domestic waste on a number of occasions. Corbett's soil map shows the surveyed area consists of partly calcareous brown earths, while the surrounding compartments contain deeper upland brown earth. This would appear to explain why the surveyed area is flat and contains manure scatter, while the surfaces of surrounding compartments are uneven.

Main raw material is weathered nodules of blackish flint (Grimes Graves type), with a few pebbles. Some flakes very sharp. Probably late prehistoric. High level of burnt flint noteworthy. - notes by Peter Robins for Norfolk Museum Services.

Lithic Sample Size = 32. Sample Area = 3234 M²

Low Lithic Density for Forest-walk 32 = 0.99 per are². Burnt flint density = 4.55 per are²


I was interested in percentages, landscape facets, distance to known water supply, etc.  It all seemed so nerdy, that I don't think that my liaisons in local archaeology departments ever really got what I was doing.  I was just starting to see some relationships between certain landscapes (such as river terraces), and certain types of lithics.  I was mapping the huge clusters of lithics between the Grimes Graves site and the river Little Ouse, I was mapping areas of previous cultivation, dating to the Romano-British periods, and the Medieval periods, based on densities of potsherds from those periods.

I don't think that all of the local archaeologists were ready for my sort of survey, they didn't know how to handle me.  They were much more use to metal detector find identification.  Anyway, after a mere forty one surveys, I petered out, and the project died.  A shame really, I was just starting to experiment with using GPS and in totally non-invasive surveying, that used very minimal sample removal, but digital images in the field instead.  I'm afraid that I engaged in abit of a slanging match with a member of Norfolk Archaeology in a popular archaeology magazine, then couldn't be doing with it anymore.  Anyway, I was ready to start dealing with living people again.

That was my amateur archaeology phase.

Resurrected Website. Thetford Forest Archaeology revived from wayback machine to Netlify (missing many images)