Copper Age (2500-2100 BC) grave goods found during chalk quarrying in 1883 near Sittingbourne in Kent, on display in the British Museum. L-R: stone “wrist guard”/bracer, copper dagger, bone toggle/belt fitting.
Image credit: A. Brookes (4.11.2012)
Sites in Kent
Images
Map of the area, larger scale available here img.photobucket.com/albums/v239/slumpy_uk/coldrum%20stones/bennetareamapsmall.jpg
Image credit: EW Filkins
Plan of Bluebell Hill and the Eastern Medway Valley.
Image credit: Dorothy C Finch
A Map of Chartham Downs from an engraving by William Barlow in Edward Hastead’s The History and Topographical Survey of Kent. Published in 12 Volumes. 1797-1801.
This shows considerably more barrows than exist nowadays, though it looks mighty fanciful to me!
Image credit: William Barlow
Two more sarsens south of Coldrum. The larger stone, seen here looking end-on, is over 6’ long, around 4’ wide and up to 2’ thick. Beside it is a smaller stone, half-buried, with a yellow tint to it.
Image credit: slumpy
With reference to this post [themodernantiquarian.com/post/55693] which mentions the sarsen stone avenue between Addington/Coldrum and Kits Coty, this beautiful weathered one lies 200m South of Coldrum just off the path. 6’+ long, 4’ wide and a foot thick. Not laying flat, just could have been pushed over at some stage.
Image credit: slumpy
A tiny arrowhead found on the edge of a field nr Cossington
Articles
The skeleton of a Bronze Age woman is set to be archived in a museum after being unearthed at a Kent building site.
Researchers in Kent have unearthed some of the largest early prehistoric stone tools ever found in Britain.
More info :
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.
Positioned on a north-west slope, the 30-metre diameter structure is one of several prehistoric monuments on a north-west slope above the Ridham fleet stream running through the centre of the site.
“Its purpose is not known,” says Dr Paul Wilkinson, of excavators SWAT Archaeology.
“But it may be that the monument was reused as an enclosure for stock management at this time or could formally have been used as a ‘sacred way’ leading to the Neolithic ‘henge’.
“The monuments are in a location that would have formerly had extensive views to the Swale Estuary and the Island of Sheppey beyond.
“The archaeological evidence suggests that the outer ditch may have originated in the Neolithic and been later transformed in the Bronze Age into a funerary monument with the addition of the inner ring.”
Archaeologists now hope to determine the exact date, phasing and character of the monuments.
“The outer ring has an entrance facing north-east suggesting that it may have originated as a henge-type monument – a ceremonial gathering place of which Stonehenge is our most well known example,” says Dr Wilkinson.
“The inner ring appears to be later and is an unbroken circuit. This may be associated with a Bronze Age burial, as a barrow, though no burials have yet been found.
“A second smaller monument lies close to the larger rings and may be a secondary barrow dating to the Bronze Age.
“While the monuments may have fallen out of use for their primary function by the middle Bronze Age they seem to have still been significant landscape features, as a track from the north-east is seen to have been extended to the causeway entrance of the outer ring.
“The importance of the location in the Neolithic period is reinforced by the rare findings of a series of pits close to the monuments that may indicate the area was being used before the construction of the monument or represents activity associated with it.”
culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/archaeology/art494192-Archaeologists-compare-Neolithic-Kent-site-Stonehenge-Bronze-Age-funerary-monument
A BBC video on the discovery of this (slightly empty) henge.....
Circular earthworks dating back to the stone age have been discovered on the North Downs in Kent.
The henge was found after satellite images were studied by archaeologists.
The circle is about 50m across and archaeologists said bones discovered in the area suggest it was a religious site.
The band was ready, the champagne was on hand then........
More info :
kentonline.co.uk/east_kent_mercury/news/2012/may/12/bronze_age_boat_replica_fails.aspx
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. Those hoards are all of bronze objects, mainly axes, tools like punches and gouges, fragments of swords, and small ingots.
Full story, including lovely pictures and interview, here:
eastkent.owarch.co.uk/2010/09/02/bronze-age-gold-treasure-found/
“Archaeologists have found what they say is the earliest evidence of Neanderthals living in Britain.
Two pieces of flint unearthed at motorway works in Dartford, Kent, have now been dated to 110,000 years ago. ”
Full story from the BBC -
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.
Today I was told they have received a Lottery grant and are starting on it next year! This will probably mean an excavation at Kit’s Coty, and the removal of those railings once and for all, follow-ups to other local finds [and probably more tombs] and a kind of marketing campaign to help protect them.
I suggested some other, more specific targets, which they seemed unaware of, and it could mean the start of an ongoing project to unearth and record so much that has been lost to farming.
With the tallest megalithic chambers and the two oldest causewayed enclosures in the country at Sheppey and Cliffsend, plus another on the Medway at Burham that is so far undated, it looks like Prehistoric Kent might finally be put back on the map.
From an article published on the BBC News web site on 4th May 2005:
Archaeologists have discovered iron age remains under the route of a new bypass around the village of Leybourne.
In a dig before the construction work, ditches containing pottery, burnt daub, charcoal and animal bone were found.
Kent County Council archaeologist, John Williams, said the remains suggested there were Iron Age farming settlements in the area more than 2,000 years ago.
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.
VIPs are being given the chance to see what was found on Thursday.
The exhibits are to go on display at Westgate-on-Sea although some have been taken elsewhere in England to be looked at by other experts.
From an article published on the BBC News web site on 28th January 2005:
Archaeologists have unearthed a unique site in Kent which they claim contains the best preserved examples of Bronze Age skeletons.
The discovery was made in a six-month excavation of a plot of land in Ramsgate, which is due to be the site of a new housing development.
The location has not been revealed because of its national importance.
Archaeologist Darren Godden said the find would help explain what happened to human remains during the Bronze Age.
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. Studied intensively by experts at Dover museum, the only way they say they can find out more is to build a replica... John Iverson from Dover museum describes it as “a remarkable feat of engineering” and will copy the materials of the original: yew timber, bees wax and moss.
A section of the boat has already been reconstructed but the project is expected to cost £200,000 in total. Funding is now being sought, but some may be available from the EU, as French museums are involved in the project. The boat will probably take three years to complete and after the crossing, it is hoped it will go on tour in Britain and France.
(adapted from the article at
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/4056021.stm)
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
Turf war over Byers’ white horse
politics.guardian.co.uk/localgovernment/story/0,9061,675788,00.html
A white horse, 100 metres high, is to be carved into the chalk downs at Folkestone to greet Channel tunnel users because Stephen Byers, the transport secretary, believes it will “boost local pride”.
Objections by environment groups, including the government’s advisers English Nature, were brushed aside because Mr Byers considers the horse would have an emotional and symbolic value for the town.
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.
Paul Ashbee – Kent in Prehistoric Times.
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.
Searchable Historic Environment Record for Kent. If you look at the sites on a map you can also choose historic maps for the area.
‘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..
