( 124 )
THE PROMONTORY FORT ON KESTON
COMMON.
BY B. H. ST. J. O'NEIL.
IN the hst drawn up by the Earthworks Committee of the
Congress of Archaeological Societies, Group A is assigned to
promontory forts, viz. " Fortresses partly inaccessible by
reason of precipices, cliffs or water, defended in part only
by artificial works."
The writers of the Victoria County History in the chapter
dealing with earthworks in Kent were unable to find any
promontory forts and, as far as can be ascertained, none has
hitherto been recorded in the County.
On Keston Common there is an earthwork (Fig. I),1
which seems so far to have remained unexplained. Although
well known to local archaeologists, in particular certainly
to the late Mr. George Clinch, apparently the only reference
to it in print is a passing remark in his Antiquarian Jottings
(p. 136)—" the earthworks . . . facing the National
Schools." It was, indeed, this sentence which directed the
present writer's attention to the spot.
The earthwork consists of a single bank and ditch of
small proportions but readUy distinguishable from the
cultivation banks or field boundaries, which exist further
south as weU as on the nearby Hayes Common.2 A portion
of it must have been destroyed during the working of the
gravel pit immediately south and south-west of Caesar's
Well. As it is, the end of the bank can be distinguished in
section at the edge of the pit by the mauve tint of the
disturbed gravel against the deep orange of undisturbed
1 The writer is indebted for help in planning this earthwork to Mr.
R. S. Simms of H.M. Office of Works and Mr. J. B. Ward-Perkins, New
College, Oxford.
2 Arch. Cant., XIII, p. 15. It is hoped to publish a revised plan of
these as soon as completed.
• * *
EARTHWORK ON KESTON COMMON.
THE PROMONTORY FORT ON KESTON COMMON. 125
ground beneath. The earthwork runs from the edge of
this quarry in a dead straight hne westwards for 353 feet
when there is a gap with corresponding causeway across
the ditch. It proceeds thence, twice altering its course
and descending the slope, into a smaU vaUey. A few feet
only from the bottom of this vaUey it ceases abruptly ;
there is no sign of any continuation up the other side of the
valley, nor is there any suggestion that it once existed and
has been leveUed. Consequently it must be assumed that
the earthwork is complete except at its eastern extremity.
Here it probably continued in the same straight line or
turned shghtly to the north, descending the slope to the
bottom of the vaUey and there terminated (as at the western
end) at a spot due south of Caesar's WeU. The ground here
has been much altered in recent years, but there is no indication
within Holwood Park of any earthwork running up to
the ramparts of Holwood Camp itself (" Caesar's Camp "
on plan).
The sections given with the plan on p. 126 and the
photographs opposite indicate sufficiently the scale of the
earthwork. West of the entrance it is shghtly higher in places,
but nowhere is the crest of the bank more than six feet above
the bottom of the ditch. Its alignment in three straight
stretches is weU planned and calculated to leave no dead
ground to the south.
The entrance is simple and measures 28 feet from crest
to crest of the ends of the ramparts, the actual flat passageway
being 6 feet wide. The causeway over the ditch,
however, is 16 feet wide ; it overlaps the end of the rampart
at the eastern side. It may have been widened since the
earthwork went out of use, for there are traces of a weU used
vehicle-track within the camp approaching the entrance
from the north-west.
This single stretch of earthwork is unintelligible without
consideration of the natural features of the district. The
northern slopes of this region are intersected by a number
of smaU vaUeys, which are noticeable for their copious supply
of water. One at least of these within Holwood Park,
126 THE PROMONTORY FORT ON KESTON COMMON.
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