Smarden’s Big Dig - A Secret Past Revealed

3 years ago Alex Ferris of Smarden History Society was making a film about the village’s history and made contact with English Heritage (EH). A field walk project for the local school, assisted by EH, led to him forming a junior section of the History Society. They now run an active monthly programme of activities.

A subsequent talk by EH to the History Society raised the question of the location of Smarden’s old marketplace in the village centre. Alex successfully bid for ‘Awards for All’ funding to enable a dig with the aim of discovering more about how the medieval village developed, and where Smarden’s market place once stood. The ‘Big Dig’ took place over a weekend in September, in cooperation with Cambridge University and their Field Academy programme, led by Carenza Lewis.

More than 60 parents and children enjoyed a fascinating weekend of archaeological discovery. Under the guidance of Carenza and her team, and assisted by medieval pottery expert Luke Barber from Sussex University, 11 teams opened 1 metre-square test pits in the gardens of houses lining the ancient centre of the village.

It was soon apparent that most pits were going to produce large quantities of finds and at the close of the first day’s digging, hundreds of artefacts were brought back to the Dig HQ at Smarden Primary School for examination by the experts. By the end of Sunday the quantity of collected items had run into the thousands!

All of the finds have now been taken to Cambridge University for further analysis, but the initial assessment showed that pottery pre-dating Smarden’s medieval Church had been discovered, together with significant quantities of medieval and later fragments.

Perhaps the most exciting find was a hoard of silver English and French coins dating from the 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th centuries found in one garden. A permanent display of Dig items will eventually be mounted in Smarden’s new Heritage Centre at the Charter Hall. Additional information is due to appear soon on the Centre’s website: www.smardenheritagecentre.synthasite.com.

The Big Dig weekend was voted such a big success by the teams that the Society is considering organising another dig next year!