The Allington Pots

By Albert Daniels

Following a request for help to the KAS Fieldwork Committee by a house owner living in Trevor Drive, Allington, Maidstone, two members of the Maidstone Area Archaeological Group visited the back garden of the house to view a pit that had been excavated.

The house owner had dug the pit to prepare the ground for planting a magnolia bush. At a depth of 450mm the 140mm diameter rim of a black pot was encountered. The owner had partially cleared around the pot which was cracked and damaged.

The following day the two members returned to further investigate the find. The pit was 1200mm by 900mm and dug into the Silty-clay of the Sandgate Beds. The pit was enlarged to 1200mm square to expose the edges of the pit into which the pot had been placed. The enlargement revealed a second damaged pot with a diameter of 280mm. The smaller pot was excavated around and the body bound up with tape, measurements and photographs were taken prior to lifting the pot. The rim was in many pieces and the base too cracked to recover complete. The contents were removed but only soil was recovered.

The second larger pot was cracked into many pieces. The rim diameter was 280mm, other measurements and photographs were taken prior to lifting the pieces. The interior of the pot was excavated and cremated bone fragments found. The cremated bone was removed and wet sieved on site through 4mm and 1mm diameter sieves.

The burial pit was recorded. The removal of the upper soil precluded identifying the level the pit was excavated from.

The sections of the two pots were reconstructed and drawn. The cremation urn appears to be of the Aylesford-Swarling type of late Iron-age pots. Nigel MacPherson-Grant was contacted to comment on the find. He thought the urn was classed as a type F2-squat, elaborately cordoned pedestal bowl according to the Isobel Thompson system of classification (Thompson 1982). The smaller pots classed as a type C2-2 small plain everted rim jar (Thompson 1982). Dating of the pot and urn appears to fall in the 25 B C to10AD date range (Pers. Comm. Malcolm Lyne).

The cremated bone recovered on the 4mm diameter sieve amounted to 105gm with a maximum size of 35mm, and that recovered on the 1mm diameter sieve was 90gm with a maximum size of 9mm. No bone fragments could be identified as being parts of a human or animal skeleton.

No finds of a similar age have been found within 1 km of the site. Twenty six Aylesford-Swarling type pots and four brooches were found in Tassel’s Quarry which once stood 1.4km to the North (Evans 1890). Two Aylesford-Swarling type pots and a brooch were found in 1923 just over a km to the South-west on Hermitage Farm (Bush-Fox 1925).

References

• Bush-Fox J.P. 1925. Excavations of a late celtic unrifled at Swarling, Kent.
• Evans A.J. 1890. On a later celtic unrifled at Aylesford, Kent. Archaeologia 52, p. 3350.
• Thompson Isobel, 1982. Grog-tempered'Belgic' pottery of South-east England. Parts i-ii, Bar British series 108 (I+ii).

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