Bexley Archaeological Group Recent activities
Site watching during redevelopment at the entrance to Academic Press, Footscray, identified an intersection cobbled yard surface associated with Tiger's Head Inn (Circa 1650). Other features were recorded, notably a corbel-built beehive structure cutting the yard surface, now some 1.5m below modern ground level.
As part of the group's school work projects, a series of Italianate gardens designed by Thomas Mawes were rediscovered and recorded by Sixth Form pupils from Borough schools. The site is in scrubland 33m to the N.E. of a now demolished Palladian Mansion (1754), Foots Cray Estate. It is expected that this site will be restored as a landscape feature and incorporated into the Borough's Heritage Trail.
The opportunity was taken to survey and trial excavate the site of caves marked in the grounds of the Old Rectory on an 1840's Tithe map and the first series O/S 6in. map of 1862. During the course of the excavation, four of the five entrances were found, but all the caves had collapsed. The purpose of the caves is not known, but the most likely notion is that they were a folly constructed by the owner of Rokesley Rectory in 1824.
Finds of Roman pottery and tile, including a box flue tile, were found during the Group's field programme, adding more evidence for a long-suspected Roman occupation site in the area of Stable Meadows, North Cray.
A training excavation on a water cistern (Circa 1760) was undertaken by pupils from local schools. The cistern is sited at O/D 147 overlooking the Cray Valley. It has been demonstrated that the original roof was replaced in about 1920 by a tunnel-vaulted roof incorporating earlier materials. It is proposed that this site is conserved and also incorporated into the Heritage Trail.
A site-watching brief on a mains service trench being dug across Civic Gardens, Footscray High Street, produced evidence for five main phases of occupation until the late 17th century when it appears that this area was raised by dumped deposits.
A limited excavation was conducted to establish the earliest date of a former estate road on the Footscray Place Estate. This road went out of use in the first quarter of the century. Evidence was found for many repairs and consistent use until 1683, but firm dating for the earliest phases of this route could not be established.
