Walking through Weald History
The writer was one of a team of four surveyors who between them recently carried out a comprehensive GPS condition survey of the Kent public rights of way network for Kent County Council, Countryside Access. The four-year project was finally completed in the early summer of 2007. Anyone who knows me will say that this was my ‘perfect job’, being outdoors all year round, with each day bringing new places to investigate.
My assigned survey area extended from Westerham in the north, then along the border with Surrey down to Cowden in the southwest and eastwards across to Tunbridge Wells, Lamberhurst and up to Tonbridge. A total network in that area of some 480 miles of paths and bridleways was covered on foot over a period of nine months from September 2006 to June 2007.
There is no better way of sampling the natural and historic landscape than by actually walking it. The western part of the Weald has some of the most attractive, varied, and often well wooded countryside in Kent, though comparatively little explored from an archaeological perspective. The landscape ranged from the highest point in Kent at Toys Hill in Brasted on the Greensand escarpment to the flatlands around Edenbridge.
A variety of sites were encountered whilst out walking four days each week. Many were apparently previously unrecorded; they were noted out of my own interest as I covered the rights of way of West Kent, working through them parish by parish. I would be unlikely to ever cover as much ground in this part of the county again.
The most extensive of the landscape features encountered was the widespread occurrence of ‘ridge and furrow’ ploughing preserved in pastureland, mostly on the low-lying clays of the Weald. The first seen was in the southernmost part of Brasted parish, at Obriss Farm. The parishes of Edenbridge, Hever, and Chiddingstone appeared to possess the highest density of these features. Their survival is obviously largely dependent on the amount of old pasture in these areas; modern ploughing would soon remove it, and this part of Kent remains more pastoral in nature. The low winter sunlight often threw the subtle contours into relief and a covering of snow on one occasion helped when photographing them.
A Wealden sunken lane at Brasted Chart.
There is further reading on the subject in Archaeologia Cantiana 1976 XCII, 165-171, Ridge and Furrow in Kent, by Mead and Kain. A few quotes help to emphasize the main points:
‘...the distribution of ridge and furrow coincides with the heavy soil of the Weald clay...’‘most evident in the triangle between Ashford, Tonbridge and Maidstone’...‘it is more or less straight and contained within the present field boundaries’...‘it is unlikely that it represents blocks of medieval strip holdings as over much of Midland England...’
The reason for its creation was most probably to help to improve the drainage of the heavy land, as most, though not all, of the ridges...
Penshurst, a large pond-bay in a ‘gill’ at Bullingstone.
Frittenden, a cluster of abandoned hopper huts.
Among other many historical features seen were a surviving group of galvanized iron hopper huts photographed at Frittenden and an unusual stone stile still in use on a public right of way near Westerham High Street.
Although my time as a ‘rights of way surveyor’ is now ended I feel that I was privileged to have assisted in a unique project and have gained a better understanding and feel for the landscape and history of West Kent (as well as helping to improve my fitness!)
Neil Aldridge.
Edenbridge, Stick Hill, ridge and furrow enhanced with a covering of snow.
Westerham, a stone-stile close to the High Street.