Big Dig in Lenham
In Summer 2003, Time Team’s ‘BIG DIG’ invited the public to excavate, causing much controversy amongst archaeological commentators. Here, one participating group recount their experience of the venture.
East Lenham discovering a lost moated manor on ‘Time Team’s’ BIG DIG weekend.
Lenham Archaeological Society officially came into being earlier this year. When Time Team announced their BIG DIG proposal we thought it would be an excellent opportunity to join in something that had ‘official’ backing and get ourselves some publicity.
Various field walks, observations, geophys surveys and research had already been started by our members and we had found several interesting areas that would warrant trial pit investigations. Rather than each individual entering separately we deduced it would be easier to enter the different sites together as a Group. Unfortunately this seemed to confuse the ‘Time Team’ organisers - as you will see shortly.
One of the most interesting sites we wished to investigate was East Lenham moated manor. The owner of the present house/farm at East Lenham, Andrew Barr, had found a 1660 map with a picture of the old manor house standing on Stack Platt, the piece of land encircled by the present moat. The old manor had no reference in the SMR although it is mentioned in the Domesday book - a modern mystery!
In June of this year we did a resistivity survey of Stack Platt using the KAS meter and with Ted Connell’s assistance. (fig 1). Is the paler inverted ‘L’ shape in the top right quarter the manor house and the darker, denser areas the fallen walls and rubble? Perhaps the rectangle (position of trial pit 3) was a stone floor...of a missing chapel? We were eager to find out. But the amount of stone in the present farm buildings and walls suggests that a huge amount had been robbed out, so was everything else just rubble?
A resistivity survey was also done of the area closer to the lake, as there one substantial wall still stands, but not normally visible as submerged by the waters of the moat. Constructed of well-shaped Kentish rag, four blocks high, it extends around a marshy area in a distinct right angle.
Was this just a ‘garden wall’ or was it the footings of the original manor, standing, rather like Ightham Mote, with its feet in the water? (fig 2).
Fortunately, when re-dredging the moat in 1980, Andrew Barr had taken this picture. The building behind is a C19 cowshed that was marked on the 1831 tithe map. But the area abutting this wall showed simply nothing on the resistivity. However, the meter subsequently refused to function at all the following week, so it may be that it had already started to malfunction on Stack Platt.
We were prepared to dig three trial pits on Stack Platt to see what we could find, but ‘Time Team’ were very behind with their Registration procedure and we had not received their pack of instructions! It was not till June 19th (just 10 days to go) that I received a phone call to say that they were very interested in our proposed sites and they would send us a roving cameraman on Sunday June 29th.
Imagine my confusion and shock when on the following Tuesday an e-mail arrived from a ‘Sheridan Nott’ of ‘Time Team’ to say that our sites were ‘too sensitive’ and that we could not be registered in their scheme. (One of our members suggested that this e-mail was a hoax…but somehow, I do not think it was).
As the mix-up seemed too silly for words and everything was planned, we decided to go ahead regardless! And it was just as well that we did, because a full registration pack finally arrived mid week at East Lenham Farm. (I would appreciate hearing from any other people who had the same standard letter from refusing registration of their sites).
On the Sunday morning, Duncan, the cameraman, arrived as planned and he took shots of our dig at East Lenham and the film was sent back to London by courier. We made it into the Sunday programme in a short slot, but it was well reported.
