Excerpts from an article published on the BBC News web site on 3rd February 2005:
Skeletons from the Bronze Age that were found in an archaeological dig in Kent and said to be among the best preserved from that time, are to go on show... continues...
Archaeologists are planning to build a copy of an ancient boat found in Dover and sail it from Britain to France. The original was found by chance in 1992 in a water filled shaft during roadworks in the town. It was one of the best preserved examples of a coastal vessel from the Bronze age ever found... continues...
In two separate incidents metal detectorists working in Kent have unearthed fascinating hoards of prehistoric coins, axe heads and jewellery.
A number of weeks ago two metal detectorists found an Iron Age hoard on farmland near Maidstone and last Sunday another detectorist dug up a Bronze Age hoard near Wye. Whole story here
In response to Rhiannon's Battle Street conundrum, I drove past there today and made a short detour. Just before the end of the lane, on the right, is a modernish housing development...called Sarsen Close, would you believe...in the drive of one house were 3 stones, and more in the gardens of the other houses in the close. One must have been 12' x 6' x 1' thick, laying flat and used as a planter of all things, a real shame because it was a stunning piece of stone...I didn't go into the field or down the path. not knowing really what to look for.
Also 1/4 mile away I found another stone, an absolute beauty, either heavily carved or bless with the most natural art ever.
Now I have some photos, but if I start posting pictures of sarsens everywhere it will mean chaos!
Right out of the Medway valley area we have hints of another megalithic structure, near the village of Cobham, some five miles west of Rochester. Here in an orchard off Battle Street remains today one sarsen, but we know that a group of great stones once existed here because Payne gives extracts from the diary of the farmer who carted them away in 1770-3, while others were removed in 1842 to make a rockery at Cobham Hall. Lucas reported in 1854 on the probability of a megalith once existing here, and states that a native told him that Battle Street led to 'The Warrior's Grave'.
...The supposed Cobham megalith was also associated with a battle. Lucas visited this district in 1854, twelve years after the last of the stones had been removed, and eighty years after its destruction, but he reports that it was known locally as 'The Warrior's Grave', and this name was coupled with that of the lane which led towards the monument, which was called Battle Street. This name still endures and is certainly of some antiquity, for we have a record of it as such in 1471. There is no historical record of a battle being fought thereabouts.
George Payne, Collectanea Cantiana 1893, p153.
W C Lucas, Journ. Arch. Asscn., 1854, vol ix, p427.
This comes from p38 and p42 of 'Notes on the Folklore and Legends Associated with the Kentish Megaliths, by John H. Evans, in Folklore, Vol. 57, No. 1. (Mar., 1946).
Cobham is at TQ6768, and 'Battle Street' is marked on the 1:25,000 OS map. Does the stone exist or not? The author's obviously confused! Perhaps someone local knows.
'The Dover Bronze Age Boat', said to be the world's oldest known sea-going boat.
Explanations, photos and diagrams of how the boat was constructed, how it was excavated, and how it was conserved. Basic but nice. Perhaps a trip to the museum to see the boat in person is in order..
Situated in a long, dry Kentish valley which runs upwards in a Southerly direction towards the escarpment of the Chalk [...] one may see the forlorn wreckage of Maplescombe church. This church, which had a semi-circular apse, still partially remaining, has been in ruins for three centuries. My attention was first called to the spot by Mr Benjamin Harrison, of Ightham, an archaeologist whose knowledge of his native district is unsurpassed. On visiting the ruins in 1904, I found a large, partially sunken sarsen stone (3'.0" x 2'.0" x 1'.6") occupying what appeared to be the site of the ancient altar. A few smaller sarsens were also discernible, and other specimens, Mr Harrison states, have been carried off, at various times, by hop-pickers, to build hearths in the fields.
One for the Christianised Sites fans (though one has to surely bear in mind that any stone is useful when building?).
This camp is right next to the farm where I go hop picking every year.. Not a great deal to see here, but an intense atmosphere, especially in the mist.. the pilgrims way runs right past here, probably an important route way back into pre christian times. If you carry on along the path towards canterbury you'll find a community orchard full of stunning old apple trees, one of the last of its kind in kent.
At 700 paces from the Pilgrims' Way we (Mr. Payne and Mr. A. A. Arnold, F.S.A., August, 1889) came on the fine but little-known cromlech called by the local people "Coldrum Stones and Druid Temple." [..]
About forty years ago, and when this property belonged to a Mr. Whitaker, and when the area within the dolmen was divided into two chambers by the medial stones, some unauthorized persons, simply to test the tradition of an underground passage, an evergreen idea, betwenn the dolmen and Trosly [ie Trottiscliffe] church, half a mile south-west of Coldrum, dug a cave, which my informant saw, at the entrance to the dolmen, now indicated by flint concrete. This falling in of the cave, too, has been the cause of most serious disturbances within the dolmen. The Vicar of Trosly here intervened and stopped this, fearing the stones might fall.
Coldrum Monument and Exploration 1910.
F. J. Bennett
The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 43, (Jan. - Jun., 1913), pp. 76-85
At the distance of about five hundred yards south-eastward of Kit's Cotty House, has been another Cromlech, consisting of eight or ten stones, now lying in a confused heap, it having been thrown down about the beginning of the last century, by order of the then propietor of the land, who is said to have intended sending the stones "to pave the garrison at Sheerness," after they had been broken to pieces.* This design was prevented by the extreme hardness of the stones..
*Thorpe's account of Aylesford, in the "Custumale Roffense," p 64-75.
p278 in The Graphic and Historical Illustrator
Edward Wedlake Brayley (1834) - which can be perused on Google Books.