Reports on Excavations Supported by the Society

INVESTIGATIONS AND EXCAVATIONS DURING THE YEAR I. REPORTS ON Exe.A. VATIONS SUPPORTED BY THE SoOIETY Interim Report by Mr. A. P. Detsicas, M.A., F.S.A., on the Excavations at t"he Eccles Roman V iUa. The seventh season of work, on behalf of the Eccles Excavation Committee, was begun last Easter and completed at the end of October; work was undertaken every week-end and for a continuous fortnight in August when a training course, attracting many people from all over the country and abroad, was conducted in conjunction with the Kent Archreologica..I Society. The work was financially supported by the Kent Archmological Society, the Society of Antiquaries of London, the Haverfield Bequest of the University of Oxford, and by private donations. This year's work was concentrated in the area of the villa's living quarters and results may provisionally be summarized as follows: (i) It is now established that the original house (Period IV, c. A.D. 65-120) may have been provided with a corridor along its north-eastern fa.9ade and, very likely, along its south-western frontage as well. Several rooms of this building have now been recorded, all laid with tessellated pavements. (ii) In Period V (c. A.D. 120-180) a corridor, in part at least laid with a tessellated floor, was constructed at a higher level over the presumed earlier one along the south-west front of the house; this corridor will clearly tum to front the south-eastern wing of the villa which awaits excavation. (iii) Another and more substantial corridor was laid in Period VI (c. A.D. 180-290) at the back of the villa and over the earlier one; this corridor, too, had been laid with a tessellated floor, of alternating strips of red and buff tesserae. (iv) Occupation of the villa in the fourth century A.D. was known from pottery, coins and some structures post-dating Period VI and recovered in earlier seasons of work. This year, it was confirmed that the villa had undergone further modifications in Period VII (post c. A.D. 290) when the north-eastern corridor was subdivided into several rooms by the construction of partition walls across its tessellated. floor (it is worth noting that several lumps of mosaic were found deposited as hard core in the bedding trenches for these partition walls); one of these rooms had been provided with an E-shaped channel hypocaust 249 INVESTIGATIONS AND EXCAVATIONS DURING THE YEAR serviced by a furnace to its south-east. A coin oflate third-century da.te was found embedded in the wall of this stokehole and some 65 coins, ranging from c. A.D. 250-380, in the soot and ashes it contained. (v) Further modifications at the extreme eastern limit of the excavated area, consisting of a room with an apsidal recess laid with opus signinum, suggest yet another period in the history of the villa. (vi) A system of ditches, mostly of pre-Roman date, is still under investigation. Training OO'Urse A training course in Romano-British Archreology was conducted between 27th July and llth August, 1968, at the site of the Roman villa at Eccles. It was jointly organized by the Kent Archreological Society and the Eccles Excavation Committee and directed by Mr. A. P. Detsicas, M.A., F.S.A., assisted by Mr. A. C. Harrison, B.A., and Mr. I. J. Bissett. The course attracted many people not only from this country but also from abroad, and it was solely due to the lack of suitable local accommodation that only thirty-six members could be accepted from rather more than one hundred firm enquiries received. Besides training in excavation techniques and background talks at noon and in the evenings on the recording of the evidence, electric resistivity surveying, coarse pottery and samian ware, small finds and site lay-out, a panel of visiting lecturers, including Lt.-Col. G. W. Meates, F.S.A., and Messrs. J. E. L. Caiger, R. G. Foord and P. J. Tester, F.S.A., lectured on Christianity in Rom􀃘n Britain, arohreological surveying, site photography, the Eccles Roman villa, prehistoric and Iron Age Kent, Romano-British Kent, and Kent in the post-Roman period. The course also visited the Roman fort at Richborough, and Canterbury Museum, Maidstone Museum, the city of Rochester, Lullingstone Roman villa and the Roman site at Springhead. Both the Kent Archreological Society and the Eccles Excavation Committee are grateful for the combined efforts of many people who made this course such an outstanding success. - 250 INVESTIGATIONS AND EXCAVATIONS DURING THE YEAR Interim Report by Mr. J. H. Parfitt on the Excavations at Leigh, near Tonbridge. This is the third season of excavation in the moated enclosure at Moat Farm, Leigh (N.G.R. TQ555466). Work began in January to complete the excavations on the northern third of the site so that the land could be returned to agricultural use. Fortunately, the mild dry weather experienced from January to March permitted work on most - 250 INVESTIGATIONS AND EXCAVATIONS DURING THE YEAR week-ends, and in fact, these proved to be better conditions than those experienced during the season proper. The rough stone footings indicate a timber-frame building 21 ft. by 45 ft. lying apprmcimately eastwest and parallel to the moat. Three outer walls are clearly defined, but only slight traces of the footings of the fourth wall are found. The building was divided into three bays of approximately 15 ft., the divisions being indicated by four substantial flat stones, each 5 ft. inside the outer waHs, which presumably supported the main timber uprights for the roof. The western bay probably had a solar floor as there are here two further flat bupport stones across the interior-not matched across the interior of the eastern bay. The building had a tiled hipped roof. The very considerable finds of pottery fragments (late thirte enth to fourteenth century) together with cooking refuse suggest that the building was for human habitation, although it is almost certainly not the main building on the site. The pottery consists mainly of cooking pots and dishes and jugs of the West Kent type, with some fragments of green-glaze pottery. The potsherds are similar to those recen tly found at excavations (of the same period) at Fawkham and at Glottenham, near Robertsbridge. a In the summer, work ws begun on the eastern central area of the site, where partial excavations were carried out a few years ago. This has revealed stone footings of walls of a similar kind to those described above and the pottery finds are of the same period. The building here, however, appears to be more irregular in shape and by the end of the season had been only partly uncovered. The footings of this part of the site are only a few inches below the surface although they appear to have suffered surprisingly little disturbance. 251