The Round Barrows of East Kent

THE ROUND BARROWS OF EAST KENT By P. ASHBBE, F.S.A., and G. C. DUNNING, F.S.A. IN East Kent there is a gradual widening of the ChaUi plateau (Fig. 1), so that between the Stour and the Strait of Dover it reaches its greatest width. The dipslope extends almost to the hmits of the former Wantsum channel, while chalk is the bedrock of Thanet. Much of the area is covered by " clay-with-fiints ", but in many places this is absent. The chaUc country has a gently roUing, open character, and in a hmited manner the environment resembles that of Sahsbury Plain. On, for the most part, the eminences of the district a number of round barrows have long been Imown. Many have been dug into, perhaps even in medieval times, when barrows were rifled for rehcs to stimulate the piety of the faithful1 or for gold to sweU royal coffers2, but few records have been made. Those avaUable range from the notice of " urns of earthenware " found when the Hackendown Banks, two barrows near Kingsgate, were opened in 1743, to the tolerably orderly account of the mid-nineteenth century excavation of the barrows at Ringwould. The plan and section drawn to Ulustrate this report must be among the earhest of their kind in British archseology. There has not been, to date, a modern critical excavation of a round barrow in East Kent. AU the barrows appear to be, or were, of modest proportions. They are for the most part singly sited, but there are groups of two, three, and in one instance, perhaps four. The extent of the destruction of barrows in the region is not known. It is possible that fieldwork might reveal a few more single mounds, but it is unlikely that groups of any size would have escaped detection. Digging has shown that certain barrows in the area are most probably Roman or Saxon. In the absence of excavation it is impossible to say how many mounds on the map and in the provisional list may be of this origin. The importance of this little-known region hes in the fact that elements of advanced Early Bronze Age character, normaUy associated with the so-caUed Wessex Culture, are known from it. Also, geographicaUy, it hes athwart the presumed trade routes linking Wessex 1 Roger of Wendover, Flowers of History (Rolls Series, 1886, i, 109) ; cf. V.C.H. Herts., I, 256-8. 2 Proc. Isle of Wight Nat. Hist, and Arch. Soc, III (1941), 185-6 ; GrinseU, Ancient Burial Mounds of England, 110. Nascent antiquarianism may have been the reason for the opening of a large barrow at Barham, near Dover, in the time of Henry VTH ; see Appendix, (1). 48 THE ROUND BARROWS OF EAST KENT EAST KENT HOUN D B>AkHOWS m -o~ !>-* 1\ sT If .zo n\ i ? \ IT X f* \ I 6 4 10 f «* &A&&0W3 C H A L K R A. 59 IO i? o r M I L EJ Fia. 1. Distribution of round barrows and the ChaUc plateau in East Kent. The numbers refer to the list of barrows in the Appendix (p. 55). 49 7 THE ROUND BARROWS OF EAST KENT to the Netherlands and Germany. Indeed, in recent years traces of an immigrant group from Britain in the Netherlands, defined in part by urns simUar in character to those from Capel-le-Feme and Ringwould, have been isolated and defined.1 WhUe the Thames estuary was no doubt a principal route for such traffic as must have passed between the regions, an argument for passage along the coasts of Sussex and Kent, and so to the Netherlands and beyond, could be to some extent sustained. We may now discuss some of the more characteristic finds from the barrows of East Kent. Faience beads accompanied the Ringwould burials beneath an oval bowl barrow. There were three smaU segmented beads of hght green colour, and one oblate bead of the same material and colour. The four urns, each of which was inverted over a cremation, in aU perhaps the burials of a specific social group, were in graves beneath the barrow. One urn contained, besides the cremation, a miniature vessel, and another urn contained two miniature vessels, one of which is aUeged to have contained a burnt substance, and the faience beads. Of considerable importance is a slotted " incense " cup (Fig. 2) i nil) FIG. 2. Slotted cup from Tilmanstone (£). from a smaU barrow, which apparently contained an inhumation, destroyed during an extension of TUmanstone coUiery early in the century. Another very similar cup is known from Luddington Wood, between Bekesbourne and Littlebourne.2 Whether or not this latter vessel was from a barrow is not known. Penwork on the original sketch, on which Fig. 2 is based, is suggestive of lines of cord ornament below the rim and above the shoulder, but there can be no certainty on this point. The records of cinerary urns are, with few exceptions, unfortunately rather meagre. In Canterbury Museum is a large fragment of overhanging- rim urn, possibly from a destroyed barrow at Stodmarsh,3 1 Palaeohistoria, II, 1-131, III, 1-204 j Antiq. Journ., XXXV, 235-6. 2 Arch. Cant., XLVIII, 243. 3 Arch. Cant., XLIII, 296. " Lutinton Wood " is Luddington or Luddenham Wood, the site of the Anglo-Saxon cemetery northeast of Howlets, now known as Ruffians. We are indebted to Mr, Frank Jenkins for this identification. u 50 THE ROUND BARROWS OF EAST KENT whUe a simUar urn was recovered from a barrow at Westbere. It is likely that the urns from the Nackington barrow were also of this type ; they appear to have been inverted over cremations, as at Ringwould. All that is known of a barrow at Stowting is that it contained " portions of a British urn of reddish clay slackly burnt", a description less informative than the " several urns made of coarse earthenware, capable of containing about two or three quarts each " that comprises the record of the contents of one of the Hackendown Banks in Thanet. ™«S ^%«WeKftRC&Wfll»KKm<«ftWH!fiA X s S S* \ \ \ \ g \ # \ / ab«.'C£araaFa*a^*v2.v)>. \ ' / a^wi^^vwnjiWvw » a U R « U S 3 B MS »« «f Fia. 3. Urn from Ringwould (J). One urn and part of another from the Ringwould barrow are in Maidstone Museum. The urn Ulustrated (Fig. 3) has a zone of cordimpressed chevrons between the rim and the cordon, and also corded lines on the four applied " horseshoes " below the cordon, and on the top and inner slope of the rim. The pot, 16 in. high and 13\ in. shoulder diameter, is made of coarse brown ware, black in the core, with flint grits. 51 THE ROUND BARROWS OF EAST KENT .Another urn of this type was excavated from the top of the barrow at Capel-le-Ferne, on the south side of the Dover-FoUtestone road, in 1952. It was inverted over a cremation, with the base only 12 in. below the top of the mound, and so clearly was a secondary burial inserted into the barrow in a hole lined at the bottom with large flints. This urn (Fig. 4) is biconical, with a constriction at the level of the apphed " horseshoes ". The upper part appears to have been plain, *-— w-y-'w •a *j ""Tw^. FIG. 4. Urn from Capel-le-Ferne (£). apart from finger-naU marks on top of the rim. As reconstructed the pot is 14 in. high and 10| in. shoulder diameter, and is made of coarse brown ware, black in the core, with much flint grit. The urn has been deposited in Canterbury Museum by kind permission of the owner, Lieut.-Colonel R. L. Murray-Lawes. The Ringwould and Capel-le-Ferne urns belong to Abercromby's Type 3, Group 2, with apphed " horseshoes " on the upper part.1 The series has recently been the subject of a study2 in which the conventional 1 Abercromby, Bronze Age Pottery, II, 39. 2 J. J. Butler and I. F. Smith, " Razors, Urns and the British Middle Bronze Age ", University of London Institute of Archseology, Twelfth Annual Report (1956), 20-52. 52 THE ROUND BARROWS OF EAST KENT late dating is shown to be without foundation. It now seems clear that these urns appeared at the latest immediately after the end of the floruit of the Wessex Bronze Age, as indeed the association of faience beads with the Ringwould urn has long suggested. The apphed " horseshoes " on these urns fall into two classes ; shallow crescents, as on the Ringwould urn amongst others, and deeper and more penannular ornaments as seen on a smaU series chiefly from WUtshire and on an urn from Holland.1 In the paper already quoted it is suggested that the decorative features of Southern relief-decorated urns, namely Type 3, Groups 1 and 2, and aU the Deverel-Rimbury urns, excluding the Globular series, originate from Late Neolithic pottery of the Rinyo-Clacton class. More recently a generic relationship has been shown between certain horseshoe-handled urns in Dorset and food-vessels,2 which brings yet another element into the complexity. Although precisely similar horseshoes are not to be found amongst the motifs of the earher series, it is claimed that they fit reasonably into this background. The significance of faience beads is weU known,3 and their integral role in Wessex scarcely needs emphasis. It seems likely that the deposition of such beads in graves was a custom observed for but a brief time, which gives close hmits to the estimated age of objects associated with them. Less weU known are the general affinities of slotted " incense " cups such as those from TUmanstone and Lutinton Wood. A cup of this type accompanied a cremation in the great beU-barrow WUsford G.8, near Stonehenge.4 Also in the grave were two of the celebrated goldbound amber discs,5 a gold-covered conical button with V-perforation, gold ingot-torque pendant,6 a halberd pendant, a circular bone object (probably a spht cranial roundel) covered with thin gold, and two amber pendants. This assemblage is usuaUy considered to be one of the richest groups from a female burial.7 Outside WUtshire four slotted cups are known from the coastal regions of Hampshire and Sussex. On Hengistbury Head, Barrow I produced a cup in association with smaU gold cones, amber beads, and a halberd pendant.8 Another slotted cup accompanied a gold covered 1 Ibid., 41, fig. 8. 2 Proc. Dorset Nat. Hist, and Arch. Soc, LXXXI (1959), 118-9. 8 Arch., LXXXV, 203-52 ; Antiq. Journ., XXXI, 25-31 ; Proc. Prehist. Soc, XXII, 37-84 ; Ipek, 17 (1943-8), 43-6. 4 Proc. Prehist. Soc, TV, 105 (no. 71), pi. IX. 0 The significance of these is discussed by Prof. V. G. Childe in Festschrift fur Otto Tschumi (1948), 70-6. 0 Compare with Ebert, Reallexikon, II, taf. 192. 7 University of London Institute of .Archseology, Tenth Annual Report (1954), 63. 8 Bushe-Fox, Hengistbury Head Report, 16, pi. m . 53 THE ROUND B.ARROWS OF EAST KENT V-perforated button, and amber and shale beads in a cremation that may weU have remained from a destroyed disc-barrow on Portsdown, near Portsmouth,1 excavated in 1948. Two more cups are known from the South Downs in Sussex, where they probably came from destroyed barrows ; one is from Lancing and the other from Clayton HUl.2 The Buckland hoard of bronzes must be considered with the foregoing. The hoard was found in 1856 in a brick field on the Union Road, Buckland, near Dover, but it was not published untU 1938.3 Apparently it consisted of three flanged axes and a short-bladed tanged spearhead of the form usuaUy termed " Class I ".4 Two of the axes have decoration characteristic of the type, whUe two have an incipient stop-ridge. The Buckland hoard is an example of the hoards, votive or prestige, current at this time.6 The blade of the spearhead is difficult to match among the examples of this type extant. The fluting of the blade suggests a distant affinity with certain Irish early socketed examples,6 though their methods of finish differ widely. A flanged axe in Liverpool Museum is reputed to have been found in 1856, at Buckland also.7 Whether or not it was associated with the hoard is not known. A heavy, flanged and wide-bladed axe in part corroded was found near Reculver8 in 1854, while a flanged axe of atypical form from Wye Down is possibly an import from Northern Europe.9 Also relevant in the present context are a number of Scandinavian flint axes and daggers from the area.10 One, indeed, was recovered from the core of JuUiberrie's Grave,11 the long barrow at Chilham. Besides this, there is a simUar axe from Canterbury,12 and two more from Ramsgate.13 A dagger was allegedly found at Ramsgate at the same time as the axe. These thin-butted and expanded cutting-edged flint axes, and the flint daggers which are copies of metal daggers in use in Central Europe are broadly, of Middle and Late Neohthic date in Northern Europe.14 1 The Portsmouth Reader, 11 (1948), 39. A full report is in preparation. 2 Curwen, Arch. Sussex (1954 ed.), 157, pi. XII, 5 and Fig. 44. 3 Proc. Prehist. Soc, IV, 283-4. 4 Arch., LXI, 471. 6 Op. cit. in note 13, 62 (list). 0 Coffey, Bronze Age in Ireland (1913) 29, Fig. 24. ' Evans, Bronze Implements, 88 ; Jessup, Arch. Kent, 97, pi. V, 11. 8 Jessup, Op. cit., 97. 0 Arch. Cant., LXV, 182. 10 Proc. Prehist. Soc, IV, 101, Fig. 16. 11 Antiq. Journ., XIX, 267. 12 Jessup, Op. cit., 62. 13 Arch. Cant., XII, 14. 14 Childe, Dawn of European Civilization (1957 ed.), 175-202 for a general statement regarding the North, 54 THE ROUND BARROWS OF EAST KENT The general connections between the finds in Kent and in Wessex need no emphasis here, but serve to underhne the relations between the two regions that have been discussed above. The exotic elements which are a constant feature of the barrows clustered around Stonehenge1 on the geographicaUy transinsular Salisbury Plain show the nucleus of a society which, politicaUy as weU as culturally, must have dominated Southern Britain in the second miUennium B.O. There are, however, sateUite regions some way removed from Wessex, where to a lesser degree the same or similar elements are to be seen.2 The material assembled in this paper demonstrates that East Kent should be associated with these. APPENDIX PROVISIONAL LIST OF BRONZE AGE ROUND BARROWS IN EAST KENT CAPEL-LE-FERNE EASTRY ELHAM EWELL EYTHORNE (1) BARHAM Barrow opened in reign of Henry VIII. Sir Thomas Browne's Works (ed. Bohm, 1884), Vol. IH, 244-5. Present paper, p. 52. Two barrows east of earthwork at Shingleton. V.C.H. (Kent), I, 331. In barrow at Rhodes Minnis " Capt. North found sherd of Bronze Age pot, bones and flints ". K.A.S. Index. Single mound shown on Kent 6 in. O.S. Map, LXVII, N.E. A large barrow near Eythorne Court. V.CH. (Kent), I, 331. GUSTON TWO barrows on Famine Down, one destroyed by light raUway. Kent 6 in. O.S. Map, LXII, N.E. HOUGHTON A barrow on Whinless Down. Arch. Cant., LI, 211. NAOKINGTON Iffin's Wood : a bowl barrow, stiU extant and much mutUated, covered five overhanging- rim urns inverted over cremations. Arch., XXX, 57 ; Arch. Cant., IX, 18. 1 S. Piggott in Aspects of Archceology (Essays presented to O. G. S. Crawford, 1951), 287, Fig. 61. 2 Proc Prehist. Soc, IV, 92. Aileen Fox, " The Broad Down (Farway) Neoropolis and the Wessex Culture in Devon ", Proc. Devon Arch. Expl. Soc, IV (1948), 1-19. See also Paul Ashbee, " Some Wessex Barrow Forms in Southwest England ", Proc. West Cornwall Field Club, N.S.I. (1955-6), 132-5. 55 (5 (e; (V THE ROUND BAARROWS OF EAST KENT (10) NEWINGTON-NEXTHYTHE (11) POSTLING (12) RINGWOULD (13) RIVER (14) SALTWOOD (15) SHEPHERDSWELL (16) STANFORD (17) ST. MARGARETS AT CLIFFE (18) STOWTING (19) ST. PETERS A single barrow (no trace now exists). V.C.H. (Kent), I, 331. A smaU cemetery of four barrows on top of Tolsford HUl. Arch. Cant., LXIII, 150 (caUed Brockman's Bushes in this account). Free Down : bowl barrows on the chalk excavated in 1872. No ditches were found. One barrow covered four inverted urns containing cremations. Miniature vessels and faience beads were also recovered from the urns. .Another barrow yielded a fragment of cinerary urn only, while a third (the founder's barrow of this group?) covered a grave over which flint nodules had been heaped. This may have contained an inhumation burial (? contracted) accompanied by sea sheUs and an " ironstone " pebble (? iron pyrites). Arch., XLV, 54; Arch. Cant., IX, 21; Jessup, Arch. Kent, 119. Several (two) barrows in a wood on the north side of the road at Temple EweU. V.C.H. (Kent), I, 331. Kent 6 in. O.S. Map, LXVIII, N.W. A single barrow. V.C.H. (Kent), I, 331. (Kent 6 in. O.S. Map, XXVI, N.W., records a tower on the site of this barrow.) Three barrows, two of some size, set in a line. Faussett, Invent. Sep., 121, 127. A barrow by the race-course. Dug into in 1931 and a scrap of red ochre found. K.A.S. Index. A barrow on Bay HiU contained the remains of a contracted burial associated with flint flakes and marine shells. Proc. Soc. Antiq., X, 29-30 ; V.CH. (Kent), I, 331. A barrow on Swingard HiU. Kent 6 in. O.S. Map, LVIII, N.W. This was the barrow opened by John Brent in 1870. Proc. Soc. Antiq., V, 126 ; Arch. Cant., IX, 20. Isle of Thanet. Hackendown Banks. "One of these banks was opened on the 23rd May, 1743, by Mr. Thomas Reed, owner of the lands, in the presence of many hundreds of people. A little below the surface were 56 THE ROUND BARROWS OF EAST KENT found several graves, cut out of the sohd chaUc, and covered with flat stones. They were not more than three feet in length, into which the bodies had been thrust, bent almost double. Several urns made of coarse earthenware, capable of containing about two or three quarts each, had been buried with them, which crumbled into dust on being exposed to the air. Ashes and charcoal were found in them. Many of the bones were large, but not gigantic, and, for the part, perfectly sound. In June 1865, the smaUer tumulus was opened, by order of the late Lord HoUand, who had then purchased the lands. The appearances were much like the former, with this exception only, that no urns were found. " Old Guide Book, 1794. Guide to the Isle of Thanet, 1883-4, 245. TEDMANSTONE A barrow 30 feet in diameter was surrounded by a ditch. An inhumation burial was found near the centre, and unspecified bones of animals and birds were recovered. Presumably from this mound, but exactly where is not stated, came the slotted " incense " cup. Kent Times and Chronicle, 18th March, 1911 ; Whitley MSS, K.A.S. Library ; Jessup, Arch. Kent, 122. WESTBERE A barrow on Skinner HUl contained an overhanging-rim urn, presumably with a cremation. Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc, XXII, 241. 67