1. A probable Neolithic causewayed enclosure, surviving as a plough-levelled cropmark site.

The subcircular enclosure is bivallate, c191m x 176m internally, but the ditches are narrow (c2-4m wide) and close set (3.8m-7.2m apart). In addition the ditches are clearly interrupted and, particularly along the E side, often displaced from the line of neighbouring sections. The 12.5m wide entrance facing due east is asymmetric in plan, defined to the south by the outward-curving ditches of the enclosure and to the north by butt-ended ditches flanked externally by a narrow-ditched D-shaped 'antenna'. A large pit lies within this antenna, with another, even larger, outside the S side of the entrance. Other large pits lie within the enclosure and the apparent relationship with the entrance (or even the enclosure) may be coincidental." (T Driver, Norton : The first interrupted ditch enclosure in Wales? AARGnews 15, 1997)

Field visit by T Driver 22/10/97. Site occupies level summit, or sloping position just N of summit, of broad NE/SW spur, with higher ground and constricted views to W & E. Undulating lower ground to S. Extensive views to N over Merthyr Mawr Warren and sea. Deep river valley falls away to E, while scarp edge lies only c500m to N of site. Landowner Grahame David.

Published in:

Burrow, S, Driver, T and Thomas, D, 2001, Bridging the Severn Estuary: two possible earlier Neolithic enclosures in the Vale of Glamorgan', in: T Darvill and J Thomas (eds.) Neolithic Enclosures in Atlantic Northwest Europe, Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers 6, Oxbow Books.

2. The Norton enclosure was excavated in 2006-7 by the Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust (Lewis and Huckfield 2009) with a comprehensive set of four evaluation trenches positioned to identify the bivallate ditches on the north and south sides, including a pair of causeway termini, and the eastern entrance with one of its flanking pits (ibid., section 3 and Fig.3). Although the bivallate rock-cut ditches were confirmed by excavation, radiocarbon dates obtained from a hazelnut shell and wheat grains gave a range of late dates from the early medieval period to the late Tudor, suggesting in the Lewis and Huckfield's opinion (2009, 69) that intrusions into the ditch occurred `? as a result of field improvement for arable husbandry, with any surviving earthwork undulations leveled to the current plough subsoil?. Deeper ditch sections produced fragments of butchered animal bones, as well as residual flint flakes, while unstratified flint and stone objects were recovered from the ploughsoil over the monument. A general conclusion is that upper levels of the buried ditches have been contaminated by historic agricultural improvement, so that any future investigation would need to focus on deeper excavation of lower ditch levels. On balance the authors were content to confirm the site as a prehistoric causewayed enclosure, but it remains insufficiently dated by the programme of excavation (ibid., 70-1).

Lewis, R., and Huckfield, P. 2009. Trial excavations at the Norton Causewayed enclosure and church farm barrow cemetery, post excavation analysis and report. Glamorgan Gwent Archaeological Trust report no. 2008/027, Project No. GGAT 72. Unpublished.