MONUMENT NO. 392236

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Mound of unknown function. Alleged Danish fort and ditch to protect a seaport.

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(TM 49318034) Mound (NR) (1)

"A. O. visited this site on May 4 1954. It is as shown except that ploughing of the site has now largely filled up the ditch surrounding it.

The purpose of the mound must remain obscure until it has been properly excavated. Its dimensions are as shown with a height of about 8 feet from the present bottom of the ditch. The top of the mound is distinctly flat.

It has been suggested that it is a ship burial mound. This is improbable, for it is tucked in to the bottom of a small valley running down from the direction of Brick Kiln Farm into the marshy Alder Carr. On our present evidence burials of this kind may be expected to be placed on the highest available ground close to the water and much higher ground could easily be had here.

The other suggestion that it is a small defensive site of the "motte" type is not impossible, but once again it is very oddly sited in relation to the surrounding ground, all of which overtops it except on the side of the Alder Carr. It has also been suggested that the slight embayment of the marshy ground towards the mound is artificial and all that remains of a kind of artificial dock. Here again this is not impossible but very difficult to prove.

It will be best to continue to show it as Mound (NR)". (2)

A much ploughed and spread artificial circular mound with ditch at TM 49318034. It is situated within the bottom of a shallow coombe towards the foot of a gentle W-facing slope of arable land and a few feet above an area of marshland. The mound is 56.0m in diameter and is 1.5 to 2.0m in height. The ditch is 16.0m in width and has a maximum depth of 0.7m. It fades out on the lower W side, and is overlaid by a positive lynchet on the N side.

The suggested embayment bordering the marshy ground to the SW of the mound is a line of natural slopes. The date and purpose of the earthwork was not determined. Its position rules out the possibility of it being a round barrow, motte, or windmill mound. Resurveyed at 1:2500. (3)

A sea port existed at Frostenden at the time of the Survey (2). Morley and Cooper (3) suggest that the mound surrounded by a moat is a Danish fort protecting a dock and a quay, the quay being visible at TM 49198029 as a small elevated terrace jutting into the marshland, with the dock 28 paces to the north.

A saltpan had also existed at Frostenden, but disappeared between 1066 and 1086. (4-5)

SOURCE TEXT

( 2) Field Investigators Comments

CW Phillips AO May 1954

( 3) Field Investigators Comments

F1 ASP 11-JAN-72

( 4) General reference

Domesday Geography of E England 1952 187 203 (HC Darby)

( 5a) General reference

Domesday Book

( 5) Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History

"The Sea Port of Frostenden" (C Morley & ER Cooper) 18, 1923 Page(s)167-179

( 1) Ordnance Survey Map (Scale / Date)

OS 6" 1928

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