Churchfield, Otford: A Game of Several Halves
By Kevin Fromings
Church Field - adjacent to the Scheduled Ancient Monument of Becket's Well, and just east of the scheduled remains of the Tudor archbishop’s palace - was long considered as the site of a Roman villa, due to the spread of Roman cbm, noted when the field was a hop garden. In 1934 two evaluation trenches by F. Godwin found putative wall remains (Arch. Cant XLVII. P 236). Later, Ernest Black noted: “Church Field, Otford. Flint walls. Flue-tiles, wall plaster, glass and pottery” (Black 1987, p 148).
In November 2012 West Kent Archaeological Society carried out a resistivity survey of Church Field while clearing Becket’s Well, and the outline of a substantial Roman winged corridor building was revealed.
In July 2013, the landowner kindly gave WKAS permission to put in five 1m test pits to corroborate the survey findings. These confirmed that the site contains a high status Roman building. Hypocaust flue tiles and pilae were found, as well as red tesserae and painted wall plaster. What little pottery there was came mainly from one area over the main building. This was dated to the 3rd-4th century AD (T. Connell, pers comm. 2015), but no coins were found to confirm this.
The test pits threw up a number of questions, which we considered could only really be answered by excavating a larger portion of the building and its surrounding area:
- What condition is the building in?
- Can any firm dating evidence be found?
- Was the building a single event, or is there a sequence to be found?
In 2015 a targeted excavation attempted to answer some of these questions. WKAS opened up 6 trenches in total, on various parts of the site: three were over the substantial east wing, one was over the main building, near a suggested entrance to the courtyard/garden, and a test pit was dug over the southern end of a suggested west wing — which, if it exists, is buried beneath a 1960's tennis court. Trench 3 was placed in the SE corner of the field, and was abandoned after reaching natural with no discernible features.
Trench 1, over a possible west wing, found a potential post hole and Roman material, but was on a different alignment to the rest of the villa. This trench was abandoned due to rain and a significant rise in the water table.
Trenches 2 & 5 managed to capture the southern end of the east wing, and revealed very clean lower wall foundations, with not a trace of archaeology in any of the ‘rooms’. The conclusion was that the foundations had been laid as an extension to the wing, but had never risen beyond this point. They consisted of a mixture of mortar and broken cbm, possibly from nearby Progress villa, which may have been abandoned by this period.
Trench 6 was placed about half way along the east wing, mainly to try and establish the state of...
...preservation of this part of the building. It did not progress below the plough soil, but painted wall plaster and several red tesserae were unearthed.
Trench 4, over the main building, proved the most enigmatic. A substantial wall foundation implied at least two storeys on the building. This wall had been partially robbed out, and a resulting pit filled with painted wall plaster, roof and hypocaust tiles, and some pottery. A couple of sherds of putative medieval pottery hinted that the robbing out may have occurred much later. However, the opus signinum floor of the adjacent internal room indicated floor tiles having been carefully removed for reuse. In one corner of the trench a stone post-pad, surrounded by a ring of stake holes, hinted at a column holding up a ceiling. The opus signinum was overlayed by about 50mm of silt, which in turn had a demolition layer of crushed mortar and broken cbm on top of it. This implied some kind of flooding event after the floor tiles were removed but before the building was demolished. The excavation still left us with many unanswered questions, but dating was more secure with coins from 270-360AD.
Later in 2015, WKAS felt that they did not have the resources to continue working at Church Field alongside their other activities. Discussion with the landowners showed their commitment to having the work continued, if possible. At this point, the Discover Roman Otford Project (DROP) was proposed, with a view to carrying on work at Church Field, and also to investigate the villa’s relationship with the wider area, not least Progress villa.
DROP started targeted excavation in 2016, expanding trench 6 to take a 5m wide slice across the east wing. However, resources were required at another excavation on the landowner’s property — a probable post medieval Brewhouse that had to be investigated in advance of building work. At the villa, DROP found a demolition layer with not one single piece of cbm in a complete state. Everything had been levelled off, and a potential hypocaust appears to have been stuffed with rubble. Some red tesserae were possibly in-situ, and a couple of internal wall foundations were uncovered.
This investigation is still too small a snapshot to expand the conclusion gained from the geophysics that we have a winged corridor villa, one of the largest in the Darent Valley — possibly second only to Darenth Villa. There may have been several phases. All the building material found was damaged in some way. This implies that the site was robbed in antiquity of all usable material, and just the rubbish was left. Did this occur at the time of demolition, or did the building fall down with the material being retrieved at a later date?
Current thinking is that most of the villa was systematically demolished in the late 4th century, possibly as a result of imperial purges. Some of it may have remained standing to guide medieval builders who needed material for projects possibly connected with the nearby archbishop’s palace.
(DROP have a season of planned weekend excavations at Church Field for 2017, plus one week during August. Volunteers are welcome. For more information on joining DROP, or taking part in field work, please contact Kevin Fromings at fromings@btinternet.com or telephone 07415 060283).
Bibliography
Black, EW 1987 The Roman Villas of South-East England (BAR British Series 171)
Godwin, F 1934 Excavation Field Notes mss (Sevenoaks Record Office)
Godwin, F 1935 Otford Roman Site (Archaeologia Cantiana XLVII, pp 236-237)
Ward, G 1931 Becket’s Well in Sevenoaks Essays pp126-130