Cobham Landscape Detectives
By Andrew Mayfield
Led by the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
(AONB), with Kent County Council acting as the hosting authority, the project has been awarded a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund of £2.1 million, which along with additional funds, including from the European Regional Development Funds Interreg 2 Seas Programme, totals a £4 million scheme which will run until at least summer 2022.
Six projects centre specifically around the scheme’s Historic Darent Valley theme and incorporate archaeological elements:
Peeling Back the Layers (2A): commissioning a high-resolution LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) survey of the valley
to interrogate and explore the local landscape audience, including undertaking fieldwork and community excavation at Lullingstone Roman Villa and other sites
The Surviving Castle – Eynsford’s Hidden Treasure (2C): opening Eynsford’s Norman ‘enclosure castle’ to a wider audience by improving signage and interpretation, as well as providing opportunities for further archaeological investigation in the surrounding fields
The Hidden Palace – Otford’s Own Hampton Court (2D): stabilising the north-west tower of the former Archbishop’s Palace and undertaking further restoration and interpretation at the site, in addition to further geophysical survey and possible excavation.
Lullingstone Castle, including a possible sunken Tudor kitchen garden and inner moated gatehouse, as well as condition survey, restoration work, improved access and interpretation of the flint bath-house and adjacent ice house on site
Gunpowder and Paper – Remembering a Working River (2F): working with Dartford Museum and other local organisations to research, record, restore, conserve and interpret the remaining features of the Dartford Powder Mills
For 2019 the projects which will be at the forefront are 2A (LiDAR) and 2B (Roman Legacy).
Above
Fig 1: LiDAR image of Lullingstone
Despite the blustery nature of March’s weather, the Cobham Landscape Detectives have been hard at work, both indoors and outdoors! Indoors we have been working with pottery specialist Nigel Macpherson-Grant to date the extensive pottery assemblages collected by the project. Highlights have included Saxon pottery from our excavations on the hollow way in Cobham Woods and evidence to date medieval occupation both in Cobham village and to the west at Jeskyns Court. We have also identified activity at Owletts that dates from the late Iron Age to the end of the Roman period. An almost complete absence of medieval pottery from the Owletts site may help confirm the presence of Medieval woodland to the north and west of Cobham village, referred to in medieval documents as Battles Wood? One sherd of Roman pottery from the southern edge of the village suggests that there is also Roman activity in the fields to the south, confirmed through fieldwalking as well.
Outdoors, the landscape detectives have been using some of the oral history testimonies collected by the project team to investigate the wartime and post- war use of the RAF camps in Ashenbank Woods.
The oral testimonies can be read on our website. We have chosen two of the huts to investigate further, with the work informing the interpretation of the site by the Woodland Trust. At Cobham Golf Course we have been hunting for a possible Tudor building on Peggy Taylor’s Hill. Although extensive demolition deposits suggest the building is long gone, some enigmatic buried tree trunks could point to the later Repton era landscaping of the site?
Our exciting lottery-funded project draws to a close this coming June, with some exhibitions and open days planned. To keep in touch with this and the many other community archaeology projects being delivered by the volunteers and Kent County Council’s community archaeology team, do contact Andrew at andrew.mayfield@kent.gov.uk on 07920 548906, @ArchaeologyKent on Twitter, Archaeologyinkent on Facebook or www.shornewoodsarchaeology.co.uk.