Investigations and Excavations during the Year

INVESTIGATIONS AND EXCAVATIONS DURING TIIE YEAR REPORTS FROM LOCAL SECRETARIES AND GROUPS Orpington. Mr F. A Hart reports: In 1982, the Orpington and District Archaeological Society has undertaken fieldwork at two very different sites. During the summer, a survey team was operating at Scad bury Manor, while from September onwards an excavation has been in progress at Kent Road, St. Mary Cray. Scadbury Manor, near Chislehurst, is a medieval and Tudor moated site. The wide wet moat encloses an area approximately 47 m. x 40 m. on which are the foundations of the manor-house and outbuildings. This house was demolished in or about 1751 and most of the foundations were about 1930 marked out with low brickwork by the then owner, Mr. H. S. Marsham-Townsend. At about the same time he caused to be erected, using ancient timbers, a medieval-style hall on the foundations of the old house. As the estate was being sold (it has now been purchased by the London Borough of Bromley) and because comparatively little documentation existed, the Society obtained permission to carry out a thorough survey of the site. This was achieved using the Seiss level purchased with a grant from the K.A.S., for which the O.D.A.S. takes this opportunity to express grateful thanks. A complete plan was obtained of the hall, outbuildings, and moated area, in addition to written and photographic records. The re-erected medieval halltype building, many of whose timbers are possibly fourteenthcentury, .is of king-post construction. It was recently badly damaged by fire. Documentary research has also been carried out on the history of the site, and it is intended to submit a complete account of all aspects of this work for publication in due course. In September, work was started on the vacant site of 10-12 Kent Road, St. Mary Cray, with the kind permission of the owners, the London Borough of Bromley. Two of four widely-separated trial 259 INVESTIGATIONS AND EXCAVATIONS trenches showed Romano-British material, and a larger area enclosing these two trenches was therefore investigated. Excavation revealed, below deposits containing mainly Victorian material, and below a thin chalky mixed modem/Roman layer, a channel or ditch in the natural gravel subsoil. Excavation of this channel yielded, from undisturbed contexts, both Romano-British and early Saxon material. The present interpretation is that an original RomanoBritish fill has been cut into by a Saxon intrusive pit filled \;Vith domestic refuse; the Saxon fill, however, contained residual Roman material. Finds recovered so far include much bone (mainly cattle and sheep or goat), tegulae and box-tiles, Roman and some Saxon pottery, late Roman coins, a little glass, ironwork including an iron bloom, a laminated bone comb and a bronze brooch both of Saxon type. It may be significant that this site is only 400 m. from the Poverest Romano-British bath.house and pagan Saxon cemetery. 260 INVESTIGATIONS AND EXCAVATIONS Sevenoaks Branch. Mr J. A. Pyke reports: The Otford and District Archaeological Group completed their excavations in a private garden at Wickham Field, Otford, where last season's work exposed a number of flint foundations at a depth of approximately 80 cm. Further work revealed more foundations with several pieces of sandstone blocks together with a piece of quernstone in Andemach lava, included amongst the flint. The foundation walls were 60 cm. wide and usually made up of five course of flint; the plan showed the walls to have been laid out in an irregular 'wishbone' pattern. There was no evidence of wood having been used in the structure and no flooring or roof-tiles were found on the site in any quantity. The absence of occupation debris, apart from three small sherds of shell-loaded pottery, would suggest the structure was probably an animal enclosure associated with a nearby farm. A bronze coin of Constantine I c. A.D. 317 was found in a private garden in Montford Road, Kemsing. N.G.R. TQ 54335857. The obverse displayed a helmeted head with the legend CO􀂗STANT IVS AVG. The reverse showed an altar stone inscribed VOTIS XX with the letters STR below. Around the stone was the legend BEATA TRANQVILLITAS. The coin was 18 mm. in diameter, approximately 1 mm. thick and weighed 1.68 gm. The site is close to the Roman building in Dynes Road, where fourth-century material was found during excavations in 1949. A bronze coin was also found in Forge Way, Shoreham. N.G.R. TQ 519618. This was rather worn but appeared to be a contemporary forgery of a coin of the Emperor Tetricus I A.D. 270-273. 260 INVESTIGATIONS AND EXCAVATIONS The coin was 16 mm. in diameter, 1 mm. thick and weighed 1.67 gm. Further work on the gold dagger chape from Sevenoaks, as reported in the Newsletter no. 1, has revealed a similar chape from the scabbard of a kukri. Mr Guy Wilson, Deputy Master of the Armories at the Tower of London writes: 'A rather similar chape, also of gold, appears on a kukri scabbard exhibited at the Danish Collection, Copenhagen, as part of the exhibition "Islamic Arms and Armour from private Danish Collections". (See Islamiska vaben: dansk privateje. Copenhagen 1982, 182-3).' The Wilderness School Group under the direction of Mr F. Tullett have begun an industrial archaeological survey of the Sevenoaks area. The initial phase of this work has included the survey of all the nineteenth-twentieth century water raising devices in the area. It is hoped to make one of these hydraulic rams the subject of a conservation project to restore it to full working order. 261