Supposed Barrows and Hut-Sites on Dartford Heath

RESEARCHES AND DISCOVERIES SUPPOSED BARROWS .A.ND HUT-SITES ON DARTFORD HEATH Successive editions of the Ordnance Survey Six-Inch Kent Shoot IX. NW. have hitherto shown groups of 'tumuli' on Dartford Heath, but these have been omitted from the 1966 Revision (TQ 57.SW.). Shallow pits, often with surrounding low banks, are associated with the mounds and have been regarded by some observers as indications of primitive dwellings. F. C. J. Spurrell noted them in bis paper on Dartford Antiquities in Arch. Gant., xviii (1889), 308-9, and he mentions that his own excavations of both pits and mounds had produced no evidence of an early origin. The purpose of this present note is to put on record the equally negative results of an investigation by the writer in 1950 and 1955. Permission for this work was kindly given by Dartford Council. A small pit, roughly elliptical, 15 ft. long, 10 ft. wide and 2½ ft. deep, was examined. It formed one of a concentration of similar pits of varying sizes near the centre of the Heath (N.G.R. approximately TQ 517733), slightly south of a small group of 'tumuli' marked on the old O.S. map. On excavation, the longitudinal section revealed that the pit, as originally dug into the gravel subsoil, appeared to have two roughly formed wide steps at one end, while the opposite side was steeper at an approximate angle of 45 degrees. The floor was flat and the filling consisted of no more than a foot of humus spreading up the sides at a fairly uniform thickness. From this a microlith, a calcined flint and the stem of a clay tobacco pipe were obtained. It was concluded that these objects had simply silted in from the surrounding surface and were not reliable indications of the period at which the pit was formed. There was no hearth or anything to suggest that the pit had served as a habitation. On the east side of the Heath the 1938-1939 Revision of the O.S. map marked a line of sixteen 'tumuli' running N.E.-S.W. Some of these are low mounds, about 15 ft. in diameter, with indications of a surrounding ditch. Others are of similar size but have no appreciable mound and consist of a circular platform defined by a slight ditch. In 1955, I excavated one of these with the assistance of several of our local members. Two quadrants were excavated which showed that the platform was about 14 ft. in diameter and only a foot high above the old turf-line. The ditch was originally l½ ft. deep, 3½ ft. wide, with a flat bottom and the sides at an angle of 50 degrees to the horizontal. From the stony soil of the platform and the dark filling of the ditch 208 RESEARCHES AND DISCOVERIES came a number of datable objects. A glass bottle-neck from high in the ditch-filling belonged. to the first half of the nineteenth century, and some pottery from the body of the platform was not earlier than the late eighteenth century. Nothing of greater antiquity than this was observed. in any part of the excavated area. Whatever the exact age and purpose of these curious features, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that they were in some way connected with the military camps formed on Dartford Heath at various times, particularly in the eighteenth century. One of these, in 1779-1780, was described by Alfred John Dunkin in his History of the County of Kent (1856), 54, and he included a plan showing the dispositions of the various bodies of troops. One long line of encampment quarters is there shown more or less in the position of the string of 'tumuli' referred to above. Writing over 60 years after the event, he commented significantly: 'The site of the long row of tents is still apparent (1853) and clearly indicated by the turf-ruins, as the traveller crosses from Heath-lane towards Baldwins.' What he meant by 'turf-ruins' is not clear, but after so long an interval they were obviously something more permanent than bare patches where tents had stood. Mr. I. D. Margary, F.S.A., has compared the Dartford Heath mounds to some in Ashdown Forest,1 which have now been proved to be remains of military field kitchens associated with a camp north of Duddleswell and on Stone Hill in 1793.2 The details of their original construction are explained in Mr. Margary's paper on the Sussex examples,3 and reference is also made to other similar mounds associated with eighteenth-century military camps near Tunbridge Wells and on Easthampstead Common in Berkshire. 1 S'tUlsea; Notes &1 Queries, iii (1931), 190. 2 Sx. Arch. OoU., ciii (1965), 60-6. 3 Ibid. 209