Ancient Burials at St Margaret’s

The Canterbury Archaeological Trust has just completed excavations, ahead of new building work, on land at Bay Hill, St Margaret's-at-Cliffe. The site lies on the summit of a chalk ridge, overlooking the English Channel, near Dover. Very particular interest attached to the site from the outset because a substantial Bronze Age round barrow had once occupied part of the plot. In 1920 this barrow was partially levelled to make way for a new tennis court in the garden of Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson, a famous actor of the day. During the construction of the tennis court, the workmen discovered six extended inhumation burials, fairly certainly of Anglo-Saxon date, together with an earlier crouched burial, most probably associated with the original barrow. Excavations in May and June 2004 showed that other remains still survived.

No traces of the prehistoric barrow mound remained but almost the complete eastern half of the barrow's enclosing ring-ditch was located. This is estimated to have been about 22 metres in diameter.

General view of the site looking towards the sea.