A Belgic Cremation Cemetery and Iron Bloomery Furnace at Jubilee Corner, Ulcombe
a belgic cremation cemetery and iron bloomery furnace AT jubilee corner, ulcombe
neil aldridge
A Late Iron Age Belgic period cremation cemetery, associated with a contemporary iron bloomery furnace, was discovered during a field walking survey during January 1994 at Little Poplar Farm in the southern part of the parish of Ulcombe.1 The site (NGR: 8425/4715), lies at 43m od close to the southernmost end of a low ridge, which extends south-west from the settlement of Ulcombe (Fig. 1). This ridge now carries a section of the road from Ulcombe to Headcorn passing along the eastern side of Kingsnorth Wood and south of Jubilee Corner. It is possible that this ridge is the remains of a post-glacial geological deposit made up of a layer of iron stained flint and chert capping the underlying clay. It is probable that the gravelly deposit originated from the escarpment of the Lower Greensand some 2.4km to the north.2 The surrounding soils are predominately clays drained by several small watercourses such as the one lying some 380m to the west of the site.
The cemetery was discovered as a direct result of the field survey programme undertaken in Ulcombe between 1993-1997 which has produced evidence that this part of the Low Weald has been settled from the very earliest times. There is evidence for Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age occupation evidenced by the flint implements and debitage across extensive tracts of the surrounding landscape. The finds of two Palaeolithic hand-axes some 400m to the south-west is further evidence for early hominid activity although these are undoubtedly redeposited artefacts that arrived here as the result of processes relating to deposits of former river gravels. A previously unknown roadside Roman settlement and an early medieval site were also found by fieldwork in the fields west of Sparrow Hall.
The winter rain of January 1994 revealed an area with traces of cremated bone and pottery sherds in the plough soil together with iron slag and fired clay furnace material. A small trench was excavated across its centre in order to ascertain the nature of the deposit from which it had been disturbed. Expectations of good site preservation were not high as the field, although under pasture since the 1939-45 war, had previously been used during the nineteenth century as a hop garden as shown on the Ulcombe Tithe Map. An intact deposit of iron slag, burnt clay and charcoal was found 0.34m beneath the topsoil. The trench was widened to ascertain the extent of this material revealing the lower portions of a number of pottery burial vessels seen to be still in situ within what now appeared to be a bloomery hearth. It was necessary, owing to the constraints of agriculture, to undertake the recording work somewhat more rapidly then would have been ideal, the total area of the trench being some 5m square (Fig. 2). Preliminary examination of the cremation vessels had indicated that the site was pre-Roman. As mentioned earlier, a Roman settlement site had already been discovered nearby; however, there were no pottery vessels of post-Conquest form from the cemetery.
The Cremation Burials
The burial vessels were somewhat fragmentary. Ploughing had evidently damaged their upper portions but their bases still contained varying amounts of cremated human bone. The vessels and contents were recorded and removed for further examination. A single pottery vessel represented each of the burials. The numbering relates to the actual order in which the vessels were initially noted in the plough soil.
Cremation 1 A vessel of pale grey grogged ware with a burnished exterior surface surviving in places. The base of the urn was found in situ. The vessel has been partly rebuilt utilizing 10 pottery fragments (Fig. 3, a). (Some 48 fragments remain unreconstructed.) It contained cremated human bone together with an iron one-piece rod bow fibula of Belgic type (Fig. 4a). The base of the urn is 12.5mm in diameter. The burial had evidently been inserted into the southern wall of the bloomery thus providing a secure terminus post quem for this feature.
Cremation 2 A vessel of light grey grogged ware also containing cremated bones. The form of the urn was difficult to ascertain, as few diagnostic sherds were present out of the 64 that remained. The burial was sited some 2m south-east of the bloomery structure.
Cremation 3 This burial contained an orange/grey grog tempered urn in 48 fragments. The partially rebuilt base suggests a size and form similar to Cremation 1. The rim profile is shown in (Fig. 3, b). Burial 3 had been deposited in a shallow gully feature 1.8m to the north of the hearth. This gully was 0.28m wide and 0.10m deep with a fill of burnt clay and charcoal. The human remains are possibly those of a child aged between 1-3 years (see below).
Cremation 4 A vessel of quite different fabric type to the other 5 urns, of sandy glauconitic clay with a grey interior and an orange exterior. Some 46 fragments remained, there were no rim sherds; however, the diameter of the base suggests a smaller vessel than 1 and 3. The glauconitic clay comes from the Upper Greensand thus indicating a possible origin for the vessel. During washing and sieving of the cremated bones a large number of minute fragments of copper alloy were recovered. These were eventually found to have been the principal component parts of a badly decayed fibula of ‘Aylesford’ type, see Fig. 4b, similar to a pair of somewhat better preserved brooches found in the Swarling cemetery excavated by Bushe-Fox.3 Two other fragments of copper alloy artefacts appear to possibly be parts of an Iron Age toilet set, Fig. 4c. They may be the surviving terminals of implements such as those from Deal.4 The brooch found in cremation 4 gives a central date of c.50 bc for the group.
The vessel was sited some 0.25m from the north-west side of the hearth within a shallow burial pit 0.23m in diameter and 0.6m in depth. The fill of this pit consisted of waste from the iron working including charcoal, cinder and slag.
There are a number of factors that suggest that this burial was somewhat different to the others that were found. The fabric was of glauconitic clay; and appeared to be a higher quality vessel type? There was a brooch and a possible toilet set contained within it and the osteoarchaeological report (see below) suggested that the remains might be those of an adult female. It was fortunate that this cremation produced a higher quantity of human remains to enable the possible sex and age of the individual to be ascertained.
Cremation 5 A vessel of dark grey grogged fabric with an orange exterior, 79 sherds remain. No rim sherds, the base sherds suggests a possible similar size to 1 and 3. The urn was sited 0.68m from the south-west edge of the bloomery hearth.
Cremation 6 An urn of dark grey grogged fabric, the base of 0.10m indicating that the vessel had thinner walls than Cremations 1, 2, 3 and 5. It was possible to reconstruct part of the rim profile, see Fig. 3c. This vessel was sited within the fill of the interior of the bloomery itself; the bones are possible those of a child aged between 1-2 years.
The osteoarchaeological report (by T. Anderson and J. Andrews) concludes that four adults, one possibly female, as well as two young children are represented. Cremation took place in a well-oxygenated environment with temperatures in excess of 500°c. Based on the weight of bone, it appears that on average only c. 11 per cent of each adult body was recovered, with a range of c.5-c.22 per cent. The majority of bone fragments were under 25mm, with the mean weight of identified fragments being 0.71gms.
The Bloomery Furnace.
The bloomery furnace (Fig. 2) when fully exposed by excavation, was found to be roughly oval in plan and had been partially set into the clay subsoil. The furnace had a total length of 1.2m and was 0.9m wide at its centre. The base of the furnace sides survived in places and was found to be 0.13m wide.
The better preserved part of the bloomery was on its north-west side. Some small stones had been incorporated into the base of the south-east side of the hearth. There was less surviving clay lining at the southern terminus of the structure. It is possible that this part of the bloomery had an opening to enable draft from the prevailing westerly wind to enter the furnace. The assumed shaft would therefore have probably been sited towards the opposite, or northern, end. The base of the northern end was found to still contain a 0.30m depth of charcoal. Section A-B in Fig. 2 bisects this part of the feature. The shallower southern end of the bloomery was filled with a mix of charcoal, slag and fired clay furnace lining.
The Jubilee Corner bloomery site appears to be somewhat more substantial than the small ‘bowl-type’ furnaces known from the few known prehistoric sites that have produced any features that confirm on-site iron working, for example at Kestor, Devon, where the bowl furnace appeared to have been sited within a hut.5
The shallow ‘boat shaped’ oval hearth is perhaps most reminiscent of the later Broadfield Type E1 of Romano-British date.6 Thus the concentration of charcoal at the north end of the Jubilee Corner bloomery may perhaps correspond with the former position of the furnace shaft? As virtually all of the superstructures of such bloomeries have been truncated it is uncertain what form the upper parts may actually have taken.
What appears to be an iron bloomery hearth appears in a section in the site report by J.P. Bushe-Fox relating to the Swarling cremation cemetery in east Kent excavated in the 1920s. In Fig. 3, the probable hearth can be seen in a slumped quarry face section to the south-east of the 18 Belgic-period cremation burials excavated at Swarling.7 This is the only similar conjunction of cremations and a bloomery known to the writer.
During further field walking in April 1999 a further, apparently isolated, Iron Age cremation was identified some 160m south of the original find. The find spot is also on the west side of the Ulcombe-Headcorn road at NGR 8423/4702. In a plough furrow were found fragments of human cremated bone together with some pottery sherds. A small excavation undertaken at the find spot indicated that these were originally located within an oval pit some 0.5m x 0.43m and 0.18m in depth. The pottery fragments, some flint tempered, although intermixed with the bone and charcoal fragments, were found to be from several different Iron Age vessels and were possibly part of the burial deposit though not of the actual burial vessel. It may be that the remains had originally been contained within some other container that had long since decayed. Although this burial was close to a Roman cremation cemetery it could definitely be dated to the Iron Age by the pottery sherds.
The discovery of the Iron Age cemetery and the associated iron bloomery forms what appears to be so far a unique prehistoric site. The dating of the comparatively few other known prehistoric iron smelting sites is usually hampered by the fact that these sites have often continued to be worked during the ensuing Romano-British period. It is often extremely difficult to differentiate between the various phases of these sites owing to the similarity of the waste products and the difficulty in locating the actual hearths in association with any closely datable pottery.
It was found during the current fieldwork in Ulcombe and Headcorn that these parishes appear to possess a surprisingly high density of early iron working sites. Indeed, since the finds above were made, several even earlier sites have recently been located by the writer which appear to indicate that iron was being smelted in this part of the Weald possibly up to 200 years prior to the Roman Conquest. It is possible that an extensive Iron Age landscape may survive between Ulcombe and Headcorn. A fuller report regarding the recent fieldwork at Little Poplar Farm, Ulcombe will be submitted at a later date.
Discoveries at Ulcombe Church
During 1995 whilst a grave was being dug in the new burial ground at Ulcombe parish church, Mr Terry Standen discovered another Late Iron Age Belgic period cremation, at NGR 846/497.8 A single badly fragmented ceramic burial urn contained human bone fragments. This vessel, a pedestal urn, was of glauconitic clay as was Burial 4 from Jubilee Corner. The remains are probably those of an adult female aged between 35-45 years.
Some years later, in June 2000, the same gravedigger located an Iron Age brooch a few metres to the north of the earlier find. During a brief investigation a further brooch of the same type was recovered together with a few bone fragments. These finds appeared to have come from a silted ditch, which had been bisected by the grave cut. It seems likely that these represent another Iron Age period cemetery just below the crest of the Upper Greensand escarpment north-west of Ulcombe parish church.
acknowledgments
The writer’s attention was initially drawn to the site by his co-fieldworker W. Coomber to whom he is indebted. He also rendered much useful assistance with the excavation in the prevailing inclement weather conditions in order to recover as much information as possible in the time available. The other members of the Coomber family gave active encouragement to the archaeological work on their farmland. His gratitude is also extended to Val Rigby, formerly of the British Museum, who examined and discussed the prehistoric pottery, brooches and other artefacts. The writer is most grateful to Terry Standen for his assistance and interest in providing information on the Ulcombe churchyard material.
A grant from the Fieldwork Committee of the Kent Archaeological Society enabled a full report into the cremated material to be obtained. The writer is also indebted to Trevor Anderson, MA, osteoarchaeologist, for his assistance and also to J. Andrews, BDS BSc, FRSM, for jointly carrying out the work and for providing the specialist report.
endnotes
1 See interim report in Archaeologia Cantiana, cxvi (1996), 336-337.
2 Geological Map, 228 Maidstone, Institute of Geological Sciences, 1976.
3 Bushe-Fox, J.P., 1925, ‘Excavation of the Late Celtic Urnfield at Swarling Kent’, Journal of the Society of Antiquaries, 41, plate XII, 3.
4 Ibid., plate IV, fig. 3.
5 Cleere, H.F., Journal of the Society of Antiquaries, 52, 1972, 9, fig 1.
6 Gibson-Hill, J., Journal of the Historical Metallurgical Society, 14/1, 1980, 26.
7 Leonard Woolley, C., in Bushe-Fox, J.P., 1925, op. cit., appendix 3, 50, fig. 3.
8 Kent County Council, SMR, Ulcombe, Nov 1995 and Ulcombe, July 2000.
Fig. 1. Site Location Plan.
Fig. 2. Excavation Plan. Cremation burials are indicated by numbers; line hatching – burnt clay; line/dot hatching – furnace material comprising charcoal, clay furnace structure and iron slag; triangle hatching – charcoal spread.
Fig. 3. Burial Vessels from the cremations: A, Cremation 1, base of vessel; B, Cremation 3, rim of vessel; C, Cremation 6, rim and side profile of vessel.
Fig. 4. The Grave goods, brooches and possible toilet implements. A, one-piece rod brooch of iron from Cremation 1; B, Aylesford-type copper-alloy brooch from Cremation 4 (a reconstruction drawing based on fragments found); C, terminals (?) of a pair of possible toilet implements from Cremation 4. Actual size.
