Jutish Cemetery near Finglesham, Kent

NEAR FINGLESHAM, KENT. 117 relics of many past ages should have its properly sorted and dated antiquities made easily accessible to the student from afar, made useful for the local historian and made easUy understandable by the young people of to-day ; then may a neighbourhood be considered worthy of retaining and caring for its evidences of its history, and then may it be considered as teaching its young to take that proper local pride which in itself encourages the attainment of higher things. REPORT BY W. P. D. STEBBING, F.S.A. THIS site, which only came under observation at the end of October, 1928, it is now known has been progressively destroyed for many years past. The situation is at the highest part of a promontory and rather above the 100 foot contour line. The land which is open arable, is not dominated by any higher ground within a quarter mile. The formation is chalk covered with about seven or eight inches of soil on a few inches of rubble chalk. The site of the cemetery is bounded by the road which runs direct from Betteshanger to the hamlet of West Street, and here, at the highest point, is a roadside chalk pit from which chalk is spasmodically dug under payment of a royalty of a shilling a load to Lord Northboume. The northern part of the chalk-pit comes within a neighbouring farmer's land, and at time of writing research has been restricted somewhat in this direction. As there is so little surface soil on the down, the face of the chalk-pit on Mr. Steed's land is a vertical one varying from 7 ft. 8 ins. to 9 ft. 5 ins. in height. These heights make it impossible to investigate the graves from the floor level. The graves seem to have been dug under no plan and no definite interval separates grave from grave. The orientation also varies from grave to grave, although the head as a rule lies about S.W. (The compass used gave true N.) It may be noted here that the sea is in plain view to the East.