Oldbury Hill, Ightham

( 142 ) OLDBURY HILL, IGHTHAM. BY SIB EDWABD HABBISON. MOST writers on the history and topography of Kent have devoted a few paragraphs to the hUl fort of Oldbury.1 It has been mentioned in archaeological and geological papers, and notices of antiquarian discoveries and other references have appeared in Archaiologia Cantiana? Benjamin Harrison, the Ightham archaeologist, coUected more facts about Oldbury than anyone else, but he pubhshed very little. Many extracts from his notes and correspondence were embodied in his biography,3 but many others had, perforce, to be left out of that work. New finds continue to be made on Oldbury from time to time. It seems worth whUe to bring together the sahent facts that combine to teU the story of Oldbury, and it is proposed to draw for this purpose on Harrison's unpubhshed notes as weU as other sources of information. Oldbury hes within the parish of Ightham, and in ancient documents of title is counted part of Ightham Common. Its nearest point to Ightham vUlage is about haU a mUe to the west of that place, where the wooded eastern face of the hill rises abruptly beyond Oldbury hamlet. The southern and western faces are equaUy steep, but on the northern side the slope is gentle and almost umform, from the southern point of the hilltop, where there is a ring of high ground above the 600-foot level, to the floor of Holmesdale, at about 300 feet O.D., near the Swanley-Maidstone raUway Une. The highest land, roughly the woodland area above 500 feet 1 Except where it is necessary to distinguish the hill fort of Oldbury from Oldbury hamlet, I have used the short term Oldbury for the former. 2 Principal references : I, 155, 174-5 ; II, 2, 8 ; IX, liii; X n i , 4 ; XV, 69, 91-3, 97; XVI, 13; XVIII, 184; XXII, l i ; XXVH, lxxvii ; XXVIII, cii; XXXI, 157 ; XXXIV, 157. 3 Harrison of Ightham, by the present writer. Oxford University Press, 1928. It has been considered unnecessary to notice in this paper all the references to Oldbury that are to be found in the book. OLDBURY HILL, IGHTHAM. 143 O.D., is a table-land tilted a little towards the north, and commands a striking view on aU sides but one. North-west and north are seen the vaUeys of the Darent and its eastern tributary stream, the gap by which the river pierces the North Downs, and the double curve of the hills that enclose the vaUeys. Towards the east the downs stretch along the sky-line, with Holmesdale spread out before them. They are broken by the Medway gap, which is seen opening towards Rochester, but continue beyond it in a south-easterly direction, and may be followed by the eye nearly to the coast. To the south, the great vaUey that carries the Uttle Ightham stream, the Shode, breaches the Greensand ridge, and a broad expanse of Weald country, towards Crowborough, hes exposed beyond the opening. On the south-western and western sides the view from Oldbury is hmited to a mUe or two by the high land of Raspit HUl and Seal Chart. The commanding position of Oldbury and the natural defences offered by its steep slopes marked it in early times as a suitable site for a hUl fort. Along the brow of the hUl, foUowing the turns of the crest, runs a Une of rocks and earthworks, which enclose a space of about 123 acres. This, fortified enclosure has for long been caUed Oldbury Camp, but would be better named Oldbury hUl fort. It is about five-sixths of a mUe across from north to south and rather over one-third of a mile from east to west. The fort is irregular in plan, as the rampart foUows a natural defensive hne, but roughly resembles a tongue with its tip towards the south. The northern part of this area is under cultivation, the southern part is woodland. Very near the centre of the fort is a smaU pond, prettily named the Waterflash. It is fed by feeble springs and by a smaU stream flowing in from the south, which drain the summit of the hill. The overflow from the Waterflash runs down the slope to the north and joins the Shode stream. Hidden in the wood about seventy-five yards behind the pond is a httle circular pool which was hoUowed out long ago.1 1 This pool is not quite in its original condition. It was deepened in the early years of the present century. 144 OLDBURY HILL, IGHTHAM. . '.•.'.v.-j.vAS ..•/.'A.'i!lii//««3r I '•'.•••:<• •''It •,•• .•*••'• %" - - • > •: *&* SKETCH PLAN OF OLDBURY HILL FORT ER-H. 1933 OLDBURY HILL, IGHTHAM. 145 EXPLANATION OF PLAN, AND NOTES. Not all the roads and tracks shown are public ways. Earth-works shown by hatching. Steep slopes shown by stippling. A : Line of existing rocks. B : Line of destroyed rocks. C : Old highway, probably Roman. D : Prehistoric way. E : Tracks, possibly pre-historic. F : Footpath. G, H, I, K : Entrances to Fort. L : New (18th century) road, which displaced C. M : Farm Road. N : Approximate site of excavation, 1890 (Rock shelter tools found). O : Site of destroyed cave. P : Waterflash. Q : Pool behind Waterflash. R : " Cassar's Well." S : Oldbury hamlet. T : Seven Wents. The seven ways are numbered. U : Mount Pleasant. Buokwell, the swimming pool, Rose Wood, etc., are outside the limits of the plan. The plan is divided into quarter-mile squares. 16 146 OLDBURY HILL, IGHTHAM. This pool is indicated as the central weU from which the occupants of the fort drew their supplies of water. The pond may be of any age, but as a conjecture it is suggested that it was made for watering horses in the days when a highway crossed the hUl, chmbing its slopes and afterwards passing the pond. The feeders of pool and pond are now liable to faU in dry seasons, but the flow of water may have been greater and more constant in the past, when the land was less weU-drained than it is to-day. There are several other springs—locaUy caUed weUs—just outside the fortified lines, and a vigorous streamlet flows down a vaUey on the north-west side of the fort. Oldbury is crossed from east to west by a woodland track with broad verges, which probably dates from Roman times, and which afterwards became part of a highway running from Maidstone, through Ightham, to Westerham and Godstone. Its old name, the waggon road, has not been quite lost. This road ceased to be of importance as a highway in the second haU of the eighteenth century, when a new road was made below the southern slopes of Oldbury, so as to avoid the steep gradients of the older route. By 1821 the ancient way had faUen almost entirely out of use, for in that year the broad green strips on either side of it, and also a bold spur of the hiU caUed Mount Pleasant, were sold into private ownership as waste lands of Ightham parish. The geological features of Oldbury have a direct bearing on its archaeological history. The hUl is buUt up of the sandy deposit caUed the Folkestone beds, which run east and west across Kent. Under the Folkestone beds is a sandy clay— the Sandgate beds. The holding up of percolating water by the Sandgate beds gives rise to springs, which occur round the base of the hiU. The Folkestone beds at Oldbury, although made up principaUy of unconsoUdated sand, with sand rock, chert and ironstone, also include seams of clayey material which themselves produce feeble springs, and, in one case, a considerable flow of water at a high level. The outcrop of sand rock is weU seen on the eastern face of the hUl, where a flight of steps has been cut in it to OLDBURY HILL, IGHTHAM. 147 carry a footpath up the steep ascent. This soft rock is overlain, towards the summit of the hill, by a hard, whitish grit, which weathers a buff colour and is about five or six feet thick. There is also at about the same horizon, apparently, where it occurs, replacing the buff stone, a very hard, dark green sandstone or grit, which seems limited to a smaU superficial area on Oldbury and is not known to occur elsewhere, except on the neighbouring Raspit HUl and Seal Chart. The green stone, which is known as Ightham stone or, more accurately, Oldbury stone, is not unhke granite in general appearance.1 Its hardness led to the summit of Oldbury being extensively quarried about a century ago, when aU the green stone that could be found was broken up, carried to London, and used in road making.2 Further reference to the quarrying work will be made later. The two hard rocks, the buff and the green, must have protected the summit of Oldbury from denudation by natural forces. Where they occurred as masses of vertical rock at the top of the hUlside slopes, they also served, as we shaU see, first as shelters for some early inhabitants of the hiU, and, later, as part of the hnes that enclose the fort. The great natural beauty of Oldbury caUs for brief notice. Not only has the hill all the charm that is often associated with the Greensand heights in the south country— timber trees and underwood, moss and fern, bracken, heather and huckleberry—its attractiveness is greatly added to by its commanding position, craggy rocks, precipitous slopes, and the entrancing views which are obtained from a terrace walk—or ride—that runs along the crest, foUowing closely the hne of the earth-works. The outstanding archaeological interest of Oldbury hes in the abundance of relics that have come from it to testUy 1 For a geological description of this rock see a Note on tlie Structure of the Ightham Stone, by T. G. Bonney, Oeol. Mag., Decade III, Vol. V, No. 7, p. 297, July, 1888. A chemical analysis of a sample of the stone, made in 1886 by Mr. T. H. Sowerby, showed that it contained 92-3 per cent of silica, some iron, alumina, a little calcium, with a trace of potash, but no fluorine, sodium, or magnesium. 2 It is known to have been used in macadamizing the Edgware Road. 1 4 8 OLDBURY HILL, IGHTHAM. to its long-continued human occupation, first by successive prehistoric peoples, and, after them, by the Romans. The earhest traces of man from the neighbourhood are the lower palaeolithic hand axes and other flint tools which have been found both on the surface and in the gravels deposited by the Shode stream.1 These gravels are spread over the northern flank of Oldbury at levels reaching up to 120 feet or more above the present stream bed. It would be outside the scope of this paper to give an account of the drUt implements found in the Ightham district,2 which have no special association with Oldbury. But their occurrence in large numbers in the vicinity points to the use of the hUl and its surroundings as a hunting ground by our palaeohthic forerunners uncounted years ago. We come next to a palaeohthic race, later in time than the makers of the drift implements, yet still remote, of whom it can be said definitely that they inhabited Oldbury. These were people who dwelt under the rocks that run along the crest of the hiU and were used first as shelters and afterwards as defences. The rock shelter people belonged to the middle palaeolithic period, and, apart from differences of type, their flint tools are in general distinguishable from the drUt implements by their colour and unworn appearance. Most of the drift implements have been roUed in a stream bed untU their edges have been more or less smoothed, and they have been stained brown by contact with iron oxide in solution. The rock shelter tools, on the other hand, are as a rule unworn and whitish in colour. This colouring is due, not to staining but to chemical action caUed patination, which has graduaUy 1 Or an earlier stream which occupied the Shode valley before it had been cut down to its present level. This older stream may possibly have flowed northward and westward to join the river Darent, that is, in a direction opposite to that of the present stream, which runs east and southwards into the Medway.—See Arch. Oant., XV, 91-2. 2 These implements were described and their significance was explained in a paper read before the Geological Society of London in 1889 : On the Occurrence of Palaeolithic Flint Implements in the Neighbourhood of Ightham . . ., by Joseph Prestwich. Quart. Journ. Oeol. Soe, May, 1889, p. 270. See also Palosolithic Implements found in West Kent, by F. C. J. Spurrell, Arch. Oant., XV, 89. The sequence of Stone Age industries is conveniently summarized in a table printed on p. xiv of the British Museum Guide to Antiquities of the Stone Age, Third Edition, 1926. OLDBURY HILL, IGHTHAM. 149 changed the black or grey surface of the newly-chipped flint, first to an indigo-blue shade and ultimately to white. With few exceptions the rock shelter implements have not been stained, for they have not been lying in iron-impregnated gravels. The Unking of the white implements with the rock shelters was suggested by Harrison. He found that, although these tools might be picked up on many fields in the Ightham district, they seemed to have some particular association with Oldbury, as they occurred there in far greater numbers than elsewhere. In 1870, having seen some implements from the cave of Le Moustier, he noticed their resemblance to the Oldbury tools and wondered whether the Oldbury rocks had served the same purpose as the French cave. The opportunity to test this speculation came after twenty years. In 1890, with the help of a grant from the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Harrison opened an excavation immediately under the face of the largest rock, and after several holes had been dug, with meagre results, he found the site of a workshop, where the white tools were made. A full report of the excavations was made to the British Association : a summary will suffice here. A shallow trench was first dug in front of a rock, containing a very smaU artificial cave, on the north-eastern slope of the hiU. Nothing of interest was found there and a rock floor was met with a few feet underground. An excavation was next made a httle lower down the hUlside, but great blocks of stone, faUen from above and buried in the soil, and a network of tree roots made exploration difficult. A third hole at a stiU lower level produced two white implements, but rocky ground again obstructed the diggers. Only neohthic flakes were found. FinaUy Harrison selected a spot about fifty yards distant from the last-mentioned excavation, below Mount Pleasant. Here the discovery of large numbers of white flakes indicated that a place where tools were made had been hit upon. A superficial area of about ten rods was dug over to a depth of three feet, and " 49 weU-finished implements or portions of them and 648 waste flakes have 1 5 0 OLDBURY HILL, IGHTHAM. been found at this spot, leading to the supposition either that this was the frontage of a rock shelter, or that the material had sUpped down from above."1 The implements found in these excavations, some of which are almost identical in type with implements from Le Moustier cave, were sent to the British Museum, where specimens are exhibited in the gaUeries.2 Other specimens of the rock shelter types are in Maidstone Museum, whilst many others are in private coUections.3 The finding of 700 tools and flakes in a space no larger than an ordinary aUotment amply warrants the inference that the implements were made on the spot, and that the rocks and caves above were primitive shelters used by the implement makers. The principal rock masses now remaining foUow a line running for several hundred yards along the eastern and north-eastern faces of the hiU and graduaUy petering out northwards. The hard rock at the top overlies a softer sandstone, and the more rapid weathering of the latter tends to make the harder rock overhang it a httle, so as to form a projecting roof. The hUlside below the rock masses is strewn with blocks of hard rock which have broken away from the parent bed above, a fact which suggests that the overhang of the hard rock may have been greater in prehistoric times than it is to-day. The natural overhang may also have been increased by the artificial scraping away of the softer rock. There are stUl to be seen two smaU caves which have been intentionaUy hoUowed out in this soft rock, though whether the excavation was done in prehistoric times or later is uncertain. The suitabUity of the rocks as shelters should not be judged only by those which now remain. There were many more rocks and there was at least one considerable cave on 1 From the Report of the Committee appointed to carry on the excavations (Dr. John Evans, Benjamin Harrison, Professors Joseph Prestwich and H. G. Seeley). 2 See the Museum Quide to Antiquities of the Stone Age, Third Edition, 1926, pp. 77-8, and Plate V. 3 In a letter to Mr. Reginald A. Smith, dated 26th August, 1913, Harrison stated that he had then in his own possession, " close on 360 specimens, good, indifferent, and flakes." PLATE I. Rock Shelter on east side. PLATE II. Rock—probably used as shelter—on west side. OLDBURY HILL, IGHTHAM. OLDBURY HILL, IGHTHAM. 151 the south-eastern face of the hiU, which were destroyed when the Oldbury stone was quarried. Dr. John Harris, writing early in the eighteenth century,1 refers to this cave in the foUowing terms, " Just on the Brow of the HiU there is an Entrance into a Cave, which is now fiUed up by the sinking of the Earth, so as to admit a Passage but a httle Way into i t : But in the Memory of, and by the Report of, Ancient People, it went formerly much further in under the HUl." Harrison's notes give more information about this cave. In 1890 he interviewed a hfe-long inhabitant of Ightham, Thomas HoUman, who was then seventy-seven years of age, who had worked on Oldbury Hill, when the stone was quarried, for " five or six winters," and who " remembered the cave weU." The witness described it as " hke a large fox's earth," about four or five feet high, and going in " as far back as from here to that waU . . . " [a distance of about fourteen yards]. " The ceiling was the rock, aU in one Une." He also stated that the green stone rocks which were removed, overhung the softer rock below them, " by about four feet and a haU." Colonel D. W. G. James, who owned Oldbury, told Harrison that when a boy he explored the cave, crawling in for more than twenty yards. A smuggling incident of which a record remains suggests that the cave was deep and that its recesses were difficult to explore. If the " Passage but a httle Way into " the cave of Harris, corresponds with the fourteen (or twenty) yards of the later witnesses, then the cave " went formerly much further in " than fourteen (or twenty) yards. How much ? We are not left guessing at this point : HoUman gave Harrison some further significant information. He stated that the situation of the cave was " on the top of the hiU, above Bassett's house," that it faced " about south east," and that if he were in the cave and looked straight out he would see " CophaU." These particulars 1 The History of Kent, by John Harris, p. 163,1719. It is evident from Harris's account that he was not personally acquainted with Oldbury. Hasted (27ie History . . . of . . . Kent, by Edward Hasted, Vol. II, p. 260, 1782) merely quotes Harris without adding to his statement. 152 OLDBURY HILL, IGHTHAM. enable the site of the cave to be identified with an old open depression at the south-east point of the hiU—B.M. 557 on the six-inch Ordnance Survey map. This depression is about thirty yards long, a distance which seems to represent the fuU depth of the cave. Natural caves are not formed under the conditions existing on Oldbury HUl, and it may safely be inferred that the cave under consideration was hoUowed out by man— possibly by enlargement of an animal's burrow. It may have been made by the rock shelter people or later, perhaps much later, for we know no more than that it existed a good many years before 1719. If the cave was there when the rocks were used as shelters it is a sure inference that the better protection of the cave was used also. The question of date can be solved, U at aU, only by digging, and excavation along the thirty-yards " floor " of the cave site is now proceeding (November, 1933). An old surface below the present ground level has been traced, but so far nothing definitely prehistoric has come to hght. Some of the flint industries of the upper palaeoUthic period (Aurignac, Solutre, La Madeleine) are probably represented by the workmanship of some flint tools from the vicinity, as is also the pygmy industry of Tardenois, but the subject has not been worked out locaUy and bare mention of these industries must suffice here. Harrison's early exploration of Oldbury resulted in the discovery of an abundance of neohthic tools. In a letter written in 1874 to Dr. (afterwards Sir) John Evans his finds " at Oldbury Camp " were stated to include eight entire celts and a considerable number of broken ones, fifty or sixty scrapers, twenty stone corn crushers, six drilled hammers, ten or twelve arrowheads, one flint awl and scraper, hand rubbers for pohshing, curved implements for chipping, spear points, etc.1 The last sixty years have added greatly to this hst and there must be numerous specimens stiU lying hidden under the surface of the woodland hUltop. 1 See ffamsort of Ightham, pp. 74-5. Most of these tools are now in Maidstone Museum. OLDBURY HILL, IGHTHAM. 153 Neohthic tools and flakes may be found almost everywhere in the Ightham district if they are dUigently searched for. But there are several sites where a large number of finds within a smaU area points to a neoUthic settlement in the vicinity. Such settlements at Oldbury were clearly indicated, and a chance excavation made in 1906 seems to have disclosed the site of one of them as well as more definite evidence of later occupation. On the north-western side of the hUl, between a strip of woodland caUed The Toll, along which the rampart runs, and another wooded enclosure known as Patch Grove, is a secluded green vaUey watered by a Uttle stream which receives the overflow from the Waterflash and joins the Shode. In 1906 Mr. H. A. Hooker, the landowner, excavated a private swimming pool in this vaUey, using the stream to fill it. The excavation was about sixty-six feet by thirty-six feet, and from three to six feet deep. Harrison watched the progress of the work and has left notes of his observations. " 13th November, 1906. Hearing that some pottery had been found, I . . . secured fragments representing sixteen or more vessels, principaUy Celtic, but some Roman, and a Roman horseshoe. The overlying deposit is fuU of ash or cinders, pieces of brick, and bits of ware. " 18th November. . . . There is a Celtic or pre- Roman layer at the base, containing many flint flakes and cores, and Roman ware is found higher up. . . . The spoU coUected represents thirty or more vessels. I had the satisfaction of unearthing two large Celtic urns."1 In another note Harrison recorded the finding of large blocks of Oldbury stone, one measuring 3-| by 2f feet, and many 18-inch blocks, many flint flakes in the ash and brickand- tUe deposit near the large blocks of stone, and other flakes in a yeUow clayey deposit below the burnt layer. He himself found many flakes, cores, pot boUers, and reddened chert stones in the burnt layer. 1 These discoveries at Patch Grove were briefly noticed in Arch. Cant., XXXIV, 157, where the urns were described as " some Roman and others perhaps earlier." 154 OLDBURY HILL, IGHTHAM. In summing up the position he wrote, not altogether fancifuUy, that the blocks of Oldbury stone " may have been used as seats on which . . . men sat and made implements, for many flakes he close by." He noted the section as foUows : " The layer of humus was a foot and a haU deep. Below this was a wash—say aUuvial—resting on an ash-andtUe layer one foot in depth, and at the base of this layer was a very clayey stratum [containing flint flakes] and a deposit of gravel." The finds at the swimming pool point to occupation both in neolithic times and later. Other locahties around Oldbury where neolithic finds have been so numerous as to suggest settlements include (a) Great Field, west of the manor house, Ightham Court Lodge, (b) near the banks of the Shode stream, east of Ightham viUage, (c) the Fishponds vaUey, adjoining Oldbury on the south-west, (d) Rose Wood, haU a mUe south-east of Oldbury, and (e) Foxbury, near Stone Street. From the land immediately adjoining Rose Wood Harrison obtained several thousands of flint flakes, while celts, pohshed and unpohshed, scrapers, arrow-heads, drUled hammers and other stone tools have been found in the vicinity. A large circular pit formerly existed in Beech Wood, to the east of Rose Wood. Harrison obtained neohthic tools and flakes and potsherds from this site, and in 1892 he obtained evidence of neohthic interments in the land immediately round the pit.1 Many signs of neohthic occupation became apparent when a part of Ightham Common, lying below Oldbury on its southern side, was first cultivated. Harrison also noticed what he " supposed to be a stone avenue leading from near the base of the hiU, by Middle Wood rock, across Ightham Common, in the direction of Diplock's knoU." As the stones were broken up and removed this evidence has been lost. If indications of neohthic occupation of the Oldbury district are abundant, relics of the succeeding bronze age are singularly few. Indeed, the only bronze objects of which a definite record exists are two spear heads, one, found about 1 Harrison of Ightham, p. 177. PLATE III. Section through Rampart on west side of Hill Fort. PLATE IV. Bead of 200-100 B.C. found near Rampart. OLDBURY HILL, IGHTHAM. OLDBURY HILL, IGHTHAM. 155 the year 1830, that was once in the possession of Colonel D. W. G. James,1 and another found more recently on Ightham Common. There are also a celt of Oldbury green stone and numerous tanged arrowheads, which, although not made of bronze, are assignable to the bronze age. The next comers to Oldbury were a Celtic race, who introduced the iron age into this country. They came to England about 500 B.C., and it is to an iron age people that the earth-works which, together with the rocks, encircled the hiU fort, are to be attributed, although their precise date is stiU undetermined. These works consist of a single bank and ditch, the earth from the ditch having been thrown inwards to build up the rampart. The defences are best seen on the western side of the hill, where a ride along the crest foUows the line of the ditch.2 Along the northern side, where the land is cultivated, the earth-works were partly leveUed by a farm tenant in 1865, but may stiU be traced for the greater part of the distance. As the north-eastern corner of the fort is approached the rampart is seen at its highest, for at this point and along the northern hne the gentle slope of the hill afforded no natural defence. There is no trace of mound or ditch along the greater part of the eastern side, where the line of rocks crowning a steep ascent would present a formidable obstacle to an assaUant. The rampart appears again on the south-east side, about three furlongs before the southern point of the fort, above Seven Wents, is reached, but it is not continuously a marked feature until this point has been passed and cannot always be made out at aU. Judged by its present appearance, the rampart seems to have been nowhere of any great strength.3 It is, however, 1 Harrison of Ightham, p. 69. a There may be traces of a double line of earth-works on the western side, particularly near its southern end, where a definite terrace about 200 yards long can be followed on the slope a little below the rampart. This statement, however, is made with reserve, as (a) the indications are feeble or impersistent, and (6) rides have been made near the crest of the hill by successive owners, whose works are not always readily distinguishable, at sight, from more anoient works. 3 See, on this point, the article on Ancient Earthworks, by I. Chalkley Gould (Victoria History of Kent, Vol. I, p. 396, 1898), and also The Archeology of Kent, p. 157. By R. F. Jessup. Methuen & Co., 1930. 156 OLDBURY HILL, IGHTHAM. to be borne in mind that it was constructed of the sand, clay, and loose stones thrown up from the ditch below, and that such materials would be very httle resistant to subaerial denudation.1 There are five recognizable entrances into the fort that may be ancient gateways, two on the east and one on the north-east, west, and south sides respectively. These are probably not aU co-eval with the rampart, and of the five, the south entrance had less appearance of great antiquity than the others. The approach to this entrance from outside, tiU a few years ago, was a narrow track cUmbing the hUl, but it was not a deep hoUow way and could not with any confidence be set down as prehistoric. This track has been almost obhterated by the making of a new, unfinished road. There was a very old way into the fort from the east, a hoUow track winding round the spur of Mount Pleasant and reaching the summit by an easy gradient up a combe. The defences of this entrance were not earthworks but the hne of rocks. This hoUow road may well be as old as the fortified hnes, if not older. The woodland track across the hOl from east to west enters the fort from the east only a short distance from the point where the hoUow way comes up the combe. It is probably later than the ramparts and of Roman origin. The hoUow way joins it at both ends, forming a loop from the later route. The western exit from the fort of the east-west track has several puzzhng features. This road begins its downward course a httle before the natural slope of the hillside begins, and so passes through the earthworks at a level that is weU below their base—suggesting that the road was cut at the lower level after the rampart had been made, in order to get an easier gradient. The sloping of the rampart above the cut, however, is consistent with the existence of an original exit at this point, in which case an older track may have been deepened by Roman engineers. 1 There is a small open quarry in the rampart at the north-eastern corner of the fort, where materials have been taken out to repair a farm road, and where the character of the earth-works can be readily examined. Similar conditions exist near the west entrance into the fort, immediately above Styants Bottom, where the rampart has been cut through to take a modern ride. OLDBURY HILL, IGHTHAM. 157 But even this view is not free from difficulty. The Roman track, after passing the fortified Unes outwards, proceeds westwards down the slope, at right angles to the rampart. Beside it, on its southern side, immediately under the rampart is a httle circular spring-fed pool, a so-caUed " Caesar's weU." Starting from the Roman track just outside the rampart, and passing the pool, a deep, hoUow track makes its way down the hUlside in a southerly direction, running almost paraUel with the rampart for a distance of 160 yards, after which it takes a westward turn. The temptation to regard this hoUow track as the earhest, pre-Roman, approach to the gateway is strong, but such a view carries with it the implication that the deep exit from the fort, below the base of the rampart, is also pre-Roman. The earth-works on each side of the north-eastern entrance are sloped down towards the gateway, which is plainly co-eval with them. This entrance is now used for farm purposes and is approached from outside by farm tracks. It is not easy to pronounce with any confidence on the prehistoric line of approach—one of the farm tracks does indeed foUow a parish boundary Une, but has no other indication of considerable age. It may, however, be significant that on this side of the fort, as on the west, there is a fragment of a hoUow way, only about sixty-six yards long, for it soon runs on to cultivated land where it is lost. This way begins outside the gateway, and, hke the track by the western exit it descends the slope (here very short) by a hne paraUel with the ramparts, taking a southerly course towards a combe lying under the rock shelters—a combe which would be weU fitted for an ancient dweUing place. There is httle doubt that the earth-works were thrown up during the last five centuries B.C., but in the absence of systematic excavation on a large scale the available evidence is too slender to exclude the element of speculation from any suggestion that may be made as to a more precise date. The foUowing facts may, however, be relevant. The fort is a forest hUl fort and a large one—the fortified enclosure covers 123 acres. Objects found near the earth-works include about 1 5 8 OLDBURY HILL, IGHTHAM. half a dozen uninscribed gold coins, a large bead, and two circular half-querns of pebbly conglomerate. Such coins were formerly assigned to 150 B.C. or thereabouts, but the trend of recent opinion is to give them a somewhat later date. The bead was found in 1932 in the soil thrown out of a fox earth, immediately below the western rampart. It is nearly an inch in diameter, is made of glass, is deep blue in colour, and is ornamented with white spiral markings. This bead has been dated at the British Museum as between 200 and 100 B.O. There is one and only one precisely similar bead in the Museum, and this latter bead was also found in Kent, at Westerham. The haU-querns were found, one in 1865, in the northern rampart, which was then being dismantled, 1 and the other about haU a century later, near the same spot. Whether these are the two halves of the same quern cannot now be stated, as the earher find has disappeared. British hiU forts were the subject of a noteworthy article printed in a recent number of Antiquity,2 where the iron age forts are classified as Iron Age A, B and C. The B forts are associated with an immigration which did not extend to southeast England, and need not concern us here. The A and C forts are found in south-east England, including Kent. Of these, the A forts are earher, a general date for them being 300 B.C. The C forts were built by invading Belgic tribes from Gaul who came to Kent about the year 75 B.C. The evidence from Oldbury, detailed above, seems to point to the earth-works having been made by the Belgic immigrants in the first century B.C. rather than by the earher (Iron Age A) invaders, but there is as yet no certainty about this point. The buUders of the earthworks were in their turn dispossessed by the Romans, of whose occupation of Oldbury there is ample evidence. It does not foUow that they garrisoned the fort continuously after Kent had been pacified, although the indications point in that direction. A few 1 Harrison of Ightham, p. 53. 2 Hill-Forts, by Christopher Hawkes. Antiquity, March, 1931, p. 60. OLDBURY HILL, IGHTHAM. 159 hundred yards outside the fort, on its north-west side, is a grass meadow caUed Buokwell, which was a Roman burial ground. The knowledge of its use for that purpose seems to have been preserved either by long tradition or as the result of some early disturbance of the soil, for ancient leases of the farm on which it hes, contained " a covenant . . . that Buckwell field was never to be broken up."1 About the year 1835 this prohibition was overlooked and the ground was disturbed, when numerous Roman burial urns, regularly placed, were found.2 In 1909 an excavation made in the vaUey above the swimming pool of which mention has been made, only a short distance from Buckwell, disclosed a bustum or place of cremation, where, according to Harrison, " an immense quantity of Celtic and Roman shards were hghted on, and the earth and stones were reddened by fierce heat."3 Harrison regarded several ponds near Oldbury as ancient ponds, dating back to the Roman occupation or earher. Of one of them, Oxpasture pond, he wrote as foUows, " In October, 1893, the Oxpasture pond . . . was cleaned out . . . Owing to long-continued drought . . . the season was very favourable for pond cleaning. A flight of stone steps led down to the water. Pottery was found in the mud, six feet deep. The pottery appeared to be Celtic (possibly Romano-British). The pond is only 500 yards distant from the Roman cemetery, and this fact, in conjunction with the discovery of pottery, suggests that the pond dates back at least to the time of the Roman occupation of Oldbury Camp." MisceUaneous Roman reUcs from Oldbury or its immediate neighbourhood include a gold Trajan coin, several 1 From a letter, B. Harrison to Beginald A. Smith, 28th July, 1917. 2 See Arch. Cant., II, 1. On . . . Soman Remains at Plaxtol, by Major Luard. One sentence (at p. 8), relating to the Buckwell urns, deserves reproduction : " Some of this pottery went into the possession of Mr. Evelyn, of Wootton, the possessor of the soil, some to the British Museum, and some [the farmer] took home, where they were converted into toys for the children and feeding-vessels for the chickens, and, between children and chickens, but two are now left." 3 And see Arch. Cant., XXXIV, 157. 1 6 0 OLDBURY HILL, IGHTHAM. other coins, a Samian dish, lamps, and part of an unguent or pul box made of soapstone. Although direct proof is lacking, there is good reason for the view that the track across Oldbury from east to west, aheady mentioned, was on a line of Roman communications through Kent. It is prolonged in the one direction, through Ightham viUage, towards Aylesford and Maidstone, and, in the other, towards Westerham and Keston.1 There is httle to teU of Oldbury in post-Roman days. There is neither evidence nor tradition of the use of the fort for defensive purposes by any later comers, and it is likely that the hilltop was deserted for the hamlets that he below it. One at least of these, Oldbury hamlet, has some indications of respectable antiquity. The parish pound is there, and not, as might be expected, in or nearer to the centre of Ightham parish. Three Oldbury field names, Bear Field,2 Roundabout Field and Double Dance, seem to contain an elusive hint of ancient assembUes. The story of the quarrying of the summit of Oldbury in the years foUowing 1830, when considered in relation to the destruction of antiquities which it wrought, may have acquired a sufficiently archaeological flavour to deserve a few paragraphs in this paper. According to Harrison, " the character of the eastern and south-eastern faces of the British Camp was entirely destroyed. The huge, beetling outcrop of rock which formed the defence on these sides was removed and what was possibly the most important camp in the south-east of England became shorn of its strong defensive works."3 It is clear from examination of the hUltop in its present state that it was principaUy or solely the green stone that was sought for quarrying and removal. This rock, which apparently aU lay within an area a quarter of a mile square, or 1 See Arch. Cant., I, 155, 174-5. 2 Sometimes, however, written Bare Field. 3 Harrison, who was born in 1837, could have had no personal recollection of the rocks that were destroyed. It is likely that he obtained his impressions from his maternal grandfather, who, to Harrison's lasting regret, was responsible for the quarrying of the stone. OLDBURY HELL, IGHTHAM. 161 less,1 was so effectively removed that it is now difficult to find a single block in situ. The method of quarrying was described to Harrison by the witness who gave him particulars of the cave. The surface soU was first removed, down to a layer of " black rock [iron stone] . . . as flat as a table and about six inches thick," which itself overlay the green stone. The sand was next removed from under the green stone, which was " a sohd rock five to six feet thick." A spherical mass of iron, caUed a dumb doUy, was then used to break down the exposed masses of rock to a size suitable for removal. The buff-coloured grit, although a hard rock, does not seem to have been sought for road-making. But for this fortunate circumstance it is hkely that all the rock shelters and rock fortifications of Oldbury would have been destroyed. In this paper I have tried to bring out the great, perhaps the unique interest of Oldbury, owing to its long-continued occupation by people after people from early prehistoric times. There is more to be learnt about this truly ancient monument than has yet been discovered, for a woodland area must retain many of its secrets so long as the trees remain. But while skiUed excavation at carefuUy selected spots might yield interesting results, it is not entirely a matter for regret that exploration is difficult. An old man who remembered the hiU before its summit was quarried, writing to Harrison from New York in 1890, ended his letter with these words, " Your grandfather Biggs turned Oldbury Hill upside down, and perhaps covered up all the caves." It is to be hoped that future excavators wiU not add to the destruction that has already taken place.2 1 This area can be roughly made out to-day (a) by hollows which represent the sites of excavations that were made to get out the stone, and (b) by numerous fragments of the green stone which were left behind when the excavated blocks were broken up for removal. 2 The writer takes this opportunity of acknowledging the courtesy of Mr. H. A. Hooker, the owner of the greater part of Oldbury, in allowing him to explore its recesses, to dig, and to wander at will. Mr. Hooker is keenly alive to the natural beauty and archceological interest of the place, and the earth-works have been scheduled under the Ancient Monuments Protection Acts. Oldbury, is, however, on the very verge of a building zone, and the time may be not far distant when development becomes imminent. The acquisition of the whole area by the National Trust, if a suitable opportunity should occur, is therefore eminently desirable. 17