News from the trenches

Development and preservation of archaeological sites

Where is it?

Snodland in Medway, Kent.

Why were we there?

Houses and a new school are to be built on the site.

What have we found?

A prehistoric site spanning Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age with remains of granaries, round houses and cremations suggesting that the area was both domestic and industrial in nature.

The Holborough Quarry find has been initially dated to c. 900 BC and is, in itself, an extremely rare discovery for south-eastern England. Furthermore, it is valuable dating evidence for the fantastic group of pottery found with it in the pit. So the pot people will be happy too!

The excavation is now finished and the site handed over to the developers, Berkeley Homes (Eastern).

Near Maidstone West Rail Station, west of the River Medway.

Why were we there?

Six houses are to be built on the site.

What have we found?

Remains of a substantial Roman villa including rooms built with ragstone foundations and two plunge baths with drainage system belonging to a bath suite. One of the baths had its waterproof opus signinum (a very strong pink cement made from lime and crushed tile) coating still intact. The excavated plan of the villa indicates that the structure extended beneath Florence Road (see photo below) and probably beneath the playground of St Michael's CE Infant School on the opposite side of the road. The team also picked up a ditch with fragments of a crushed horse skull beneath a mass of Late Iron Age 'Belgic' pottery sherds.

Bredgar village, near Sittingbourne, Kent.

Why were we there?

Two new classrooms are to be built on the site of Bredgar Primary School.

What have we found?

Comparatively little is known about the archaeology of the area and the six week excavation has now added more information. A ditch from an Iron Age enclosure was found and substantial flint foundations of what may be a small Roman farmstead, disappearing beneath the primary school! Bredgar Primary is a Victorian school built in 1868 and we also found fragments of writing and arithmetic slates from its early years.

An Open Day was arranged for local people and another day was devoted to the school children, eager to find out what all about the dig. Each class, from Reception to top junior had a classroom 'What do Archaeologists do?' session (with finds including the writing slates and Norman poo!).

Bredgar village is famous for the 'Bredgar hoard' – a collection of 33 Roman gold coins found in 1957 while digging foundation trenches for a new bungalow. The coins were found in mint condition and ranged in date from the time of Julius Caesar to Claudius. They are now in the British Museum.

Wincheap, south of Canterbury city. The exact location is currently undisclosed.

Why were we there?

The site is being evaluated prior to redevelopment.

What have we found?

A number of very well preserved Romano-British pottery vessels representing at least one cremation burial. There were also disarticulated human bones nearby. These remains are almost certainly from the extensive Romano-British cemetery known to exist in this area, stretching from Worth Gate (built into the original Roman town walls) extending south to Hollow Lane.

Where is it?

The site lies on private land at Ringlemere Farm, Woodnesborough, near Sandwich, Kent.

Why were we there?

In November 2001, the owners of Ringlemere Farm had allowed Mr Cliff Bradshaw, a local metal detectorist, to walk their land. While scanning the middle of a field he made a spectacular discovery - the gold cup seen here. Although it had been damaged by the plough, Mr Bradshaw could see that it was very similar to the Bronze Age cup excavated at Rillaton, Cornwall in 1837. He contacted Keith Parfillt, a site director at CAT with considerable experience of working in this part of the county. An excavation followed and Cliff Bradshaw participated throughout the work. The Ringlemere story is a splendid example of what can be achieved by detectorists and archaeologists working sensibly together.

Fragment of carved amber from the barrow site.

The Ringlemere Bronze Age Gold Cup

The cup was discovered on the edge of a low mound, lying in the middle of what was then a recently harvested potato field. Mr Bradshaw suspected that the mound might be the remains of an unrecorded round barrow (burial mound) and Keith Parfitt agreed that this was probably the case. A subsequent geophysics survey by English Heritage located an enclosing ring-ditch and confirmed this as a very large round barrow site.

	Surviving barrows are rare in east Kent. Extensive farming across the landscape has meant that many have unfortunately been ploughed flat. At Ringlemere the base of the mound actually survived - the last remnants of a great barrow mound that must have originally risen to a height of perhaps 20 feet. Following extensive field-walking, excavation work began with the specific aim of locating the cup's original context in the ground. Initially it seemed likely that the vessel came from a Bronze Age grave within the barrow but this proved not to be so. We now think that the cup had been placed in the mound's core - but not at its centre and not with a burial. Perhaps it was deposited here as some sort of offering to the Gods during the actual construction of the mound. However, the soil at the core of the mound had later been extensively disturbed by burrowing animals, possibly causing the cup to be moved from its original position.
© Trustees of the British Museum

Survival of the base of the barrow mound meant that evidence of earlier activity had been 'trapped' below it. Extensive collections of prehistoric struck flints and pottery indicate that the site had been occupied during both the Mesolithic and later Neolithic periods. The close proximity of a small fresh-water stream below the site may well explain the apparent popularity of the area with early settlers.

Acknowledgements: Thanks are due first and foremost to the owners, the Smith family, who readily allowed access to the site and took a great interest in the progress of the work. Thanks are also due to English Heritage for funding the excavation and providing substantial scientific back-up. The staff at K.C.C.'s Heritage Conservation Group monitored the project throughout and provided assistance in a variety of ways. In addition to the full-time excavators from C.A.T., teams of volunteers from the Thanet Trust and Dover Archaeological Group were able to make a valuable contribution to the excavation work.

For more information see also:
Canterbury's Archaeology 2001–2002, Kent Sites PDF
Canterbury's Archaeology 2002–2003, Kent Sites PDF
Canterbury's Archaeology 2003–2004, Kent Sites PDF
Canterbury's Archaeology 2004–2005, Kent Sites PDF
The Director's diary, 2004 | The Director's diary, 2005 | The Director's diary, 2006