THE GOLDEN GATES

There is an old folklore yarn (though I suppose, by implication, all folklore stories are old), told my whom and coming from where I do not know, that once upon a time a pair of Golden Gates were buried in the north-west Norfolk area. It is not a well-known story, but I have seen it mentioned at least twice if not three times among the writings of Charles Lewton Brain, who three decades or so ago wrote occasional articles, largely about archaeology, for the EDP. 
Charles was born at Swanton Morley, near East Dereham, and educated at King's Lynn, and after service in World War One spent his working life in a London bank. On retirement to Heacham on the north-west Norfolk coast, however, he quickly developed a passion for archaeology that was to last the rest of his life. One of his specialisms was the Icknield Way, though two of his other titles related to Heacham itself and to the history of the Sandringham Royal estate. A later publication which caught my eye was Walking on Buried History, which collected together a number of his EDP articles.
There is a slight problem here in that he places the Golden Gates story in two different, albeit close together, locations. In Mounds, Mottes and Barrows, he writes of the mound related to the Golden Gates legend as being at the back of the porter's lodge at Appleton. Here he evidently spoke to a local worthy who said this was indeed the location of the legend, and that the mound in question was also the resting place of a 'Roman general.' 
In Places and People, however, he placed the mound closer to Heacham, not far from a field which in Tudor times was known as Cattel Wong and was adjacent to the course of the Icknield Way and next door to the field which contained the Golden Gates mound.
So what were these Golden Gates? To begin with, Appleton and Heacham are not that far apart. Both locations are close to the assumed line of the Icknield Way, and most tellingly, the Golden Gates story - if the story is still told today - is still in a part of the Norfolk countryside which does have a close association with gold. I refer to Ken Hill and the discoveries there and around the Heacham and Sedgeford district, of Iron Age torcs, and the feeling that, in those long gone days, there must have been precious metal workshops in the vicinity. More-over, and assuming this to be true, then there must also have been regular movements and shipments of gold - possibly mostly for re-use - in and out of the district.
Of course, it is all too easy to assume there is some sort of connection between the puzzling folklore story of Golden Gates and the Iron Age torc trade, but as far as I know there is nothing at all to link them.
On the other hand, what if the Gates were not gates at all, but a tunnel or defile thickly decorated with the blazing yellow flowers of broom or, much more likely in that area, gorse? I have seen patches of gorse in the sandy Brecklands when, with the sun out and the gorse at its brilliant best, one could be forgiven for thinking that the landscape was burnished with gold.
Personally, I live in hope that gorse is not at the bottom of the story, which must be deeply embedded in some folk memory or other. I'd like to hear of the Golden Gates mound finally being identified and excavated, and a further cache of Iron Age torcs being brought to the surface. We live in hope.
(Walking on Buried History, by Charles Lewton Brain. Larks Press, 2009).