Archaeologists compare Neolithic Kent site to Stonehenge, find Bronze Age funerary monument
A Neolithic ditch which became a huge funerary monument when it was enlarged with an outer ring during the Bronze Age has been found on housing development grounds in Kent.
Archaeologists suspect a “sacred way” could have led to a henge 6,000 years ago at Iwade Meadows, to the west of the Kent industrial town of Sittingbourne... continues...
Two Bronze Age gold bracelets almost 3,000 years old have been discovered during excavations along the route of the East Kent Access Road. When they were found one bracelet was placed inside the other.
The bracelets were found in an area of the Ebbsfleet peninsula from which four other Late Bronze Age hoards are already known... continues...
I have spent the last few months battering away at the local Heritage departments in an attempt to improve the knowledge and awareness of the locals and to do something about the pretty sad state of the monuments around the Medway... continues...
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!
When first built, the Medway's long barrows had high rectangular chambers. These, their entrances finally blocked by a focal portal stone, and with a facade, were at the eastern end of considerable, in surviving instances more than 60m in length, long barrows. Flanked by quarry ditches or scoops, they were retained by sarsen stone kerbs, the surviving boulders being mostly of modest size.
On the eastern side of the Medway there is the Lower Kit's Coty House, where, when scrutinized from the east, it can be seen that the chamber's side stones have fallen to the north. Were they, as were those of Chestnuts, merely pulled back into a vertical position, there would be a chamber almost 7m long and 3.5m wide, with an astonishing internal height, at least at the entrance, of almost 2.8m. At Chestnuts this procedure showed that its stones demarcated a chamber 4m long, 2m wide and 3m high. The Coffin Stone's chamber could have been at least 3.5m high.
Such chamber heights are exceptional, and thus the Medway's megalithic long barrows were undiputedly a unique group of the largest and most grandiose of their kind.
Something else to throw into the Medway mix. I'd not heard of these pits before, perhaps they're not prehistoric at all, but their proximity to Kit's Coty and the rest is interesting, and they are to do with flint..
At several places in this part of Kent, especially on and near the high ridge which runs to the westward, there have been observed deep pits, evidently of a very remote antiquity. They consist of a large circular shaft, descending like a well, and opening at the bottom into one or more chambers..
On Friday, the 23rd of August, 1844, having obtained permission to excavate in the estate belonging to Preston Hall, which extends over the top of this hill, I took some labourers with me.. to examine the ground behind Kits Coty House.. I proceeded further on the top of the hill into what I knew to be the Preston Hall property, and on the ground just within the limits of Aylesford common I found single stones, closely resembling those of which the cromlechs below are built, but lying flat on the ground.
My first impression was that they were the capstones of cromlechs, or sepulchral chambers, buried under theground, and, having singled out one of them, I set the men to dig under the side of it. When they got under the edge they found thye were digging among a mass of flints, which had evidently been placed there by design; I then caused the men to continue the excavation to a greater distance round, and, to my surprise, I found that this immense stone was laid over the mouth of a large circular pit which had first been filled up to the top with flints. To proceed any further without a greater number of men than I had with me would have been useless.
But, just as I was leaving it, some of the cottagers on the top of the hill - squatters - informed me that these pits were frequently found on that hill, and that they generally had one or two of the large stones at the mouth. When, a few years before, a new road was made over the brow of the hill, and flints were sought for that purpose, the labourers discovered these pits and partly emptied some of them, which they found much more profitable than seeking the flints on the surface of the chalk. One was shown to me which had been emptied to a depth of about ten feet, and had been discontinued on account of the labour of throwing the flints up.
p565 in The Gentleman's Magazine for 1852, in an article on 'The Valley of Maidstone - Kits Coty House and the Cromlechs around' by Thomas Wright.
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..
Well, I was a bit at a loss as to what 'designation' to apply to this one - isn't it curious how we humans always have the need to define things? - seeing as that shameful qualifier 'Destroyed' seems most inappropriate here.
To attempt to clarify/explain: it would seem - or at least appear highly likely to me - that once upon a time, the natural feature that is Barrow Hill was crowned by an earthen barrow covering a cist. Kent's HER informs us that: "As the result of denudation of a burial mound of marsh turf, the outline of a collapsed oblong cist of Kentish ragstone was visible on Higham Marshes. It was excavated in 1880 by Mr E.L.Arnold and found to contain a crouched skeleton (very crushed) accompanied by 79 beads which lay as if they had originally been around the neck. the beads were Porosphaera globularis (a fossil sponge common in the Upper Chalk and taking a globular form), ranging from 7 to 26 mm. in diameter and naturally perforated. The mound stood on a gravelly hillock which probably stood out of the water when all the surrounding district was swamp".
Now, although there appears to be no conclusive proof that Barrow Hill was the location of said cist, the fact that: 1) Barrow Hill is the only such feature (as described) in the locality; 2) The locals saw fit to name the place 'Barrow Hill'... suggests it is a pretty good bet.
So, should one focus upon the destroyed round barrow that once was... or the natural feature that simply HAD to be the site for it back then? Sacred Hill seems fair enough, don't you think?
"... bowl barrow situated on the crest of a ridge facing south-west in an area of undulating chalk downland. The barrow has a mound 20m in diameter and 1m high surrounded by a ditch from which material was quarried during the construction of the monument. Having become partially infilled over the years, the ditch is now only visible as a slight depression to the south-west of the mound; the remainder survives as a buried feature c.3m wide. The barrow was recorded as 'Stumleburgh' in a land grant of 1289"
However... upon visiting said hilltop 28/5/23, I reluctantly came away without any definite identification, such is the disturbed, overgrown nature of the (apparently 'private'...yawn) woodland to the south of The North Downs Way. Hence no image. Incidentally, I have to say the almost psychotic surfeit of Private/Keep Out etc etc signs in the locale of Otford does the locals no credit whatsoever.... couldn't wait to get away.
With time very much at a premium - following an extended hang at the fine oval 'long' barrow within nearby Shrub's Wood - this remained an 'over the hedge' view... once the extent of the fine views to be had here became apparent. Very much worth a return at some point to do the site justice.
Historic England reckons:
"The monument, a bowl barrow located on the crest of the Downs with extensive views to the south and west, includes an earthen mound encircled by a now-infilled quarry ditch. The profile or the mound suggests that it has been spread slightly by agricultural activity, but the barrow mound nevertheless survives to a height of 1.6m above the surrounding land and measures 21m in diameter. The surrounding ditch has been infilled by the soil eroded and spread from the mound so that it is no longer visible. The diameter of the mound and ditch together is 26m."