SHARP’s work on Iron Age settlement in the area began in 2000, and our work has so far involved desktop research, field survey, and small-scale excavation. We are beginning to see where people lived, the types of objects they used, and the links they had with communities further afield. Theories are developing which interpret Sedgeford as part of a north-west Norfolk regional group that used similar objects and may have had similar beliefs and rituals.

Our evidence suggests that in Iron Age Sedgeford people lived in small, unenclosed settlements like those excavated at nearby Snettisham. They grew spelt wheat in fields. They used both handmade and wheel-thrown pottery. They used and deposited rich assemblages of metal objects, including the coins of the Sedgeford hoard and the Sedgeford torc. They were connected to the wider world of north-west Norfolk by prehistoric tracks and a small river that passed through the valley.

The people of Sedgeford were part of a regional group that used similar objects and constructed comparable sites. Metal items were often collected together in hoards and buried in pits at sites near to, or overlooking water, or at other high points in the landscape. The Sedgeford hoard is a further example of this well established pattern. This similarity in ritual implies a people who shared religious beliefs and had a common identity.

There was also communication with a yet wider world. North-west Norfolk was linked to other parts of Britain and to the Continent. Prehistoric trackways linked it with south-east Suffolk and southern Britain generally. Ports and a sea-way across The Wash linked it with northern Britain. These same ports were, no doubt, the link with the Continent. Despite this, the people of the region retained a strong local identity, expressed in characteristic objects, styles of decoration, and the production of coins with a tribal name inscribed on them.

Megan Dennis January 2005

THE 2003 SEDGEFORD HOARD and HORSE BURIAL

THE 2004 SEDGEFORD TORC TERMINAL

The Sedgeford Torc discovered in the 1965.
Now in the British Museum.

The missing terminal was found by a SHARP fieldwalking volunteer at Easter 2004.