The Second KAS Conference

More than 160 people attended the second one-day KAS conference in September last year, organised as part of our 150th anniversary celebrations and sponsored jointly with the University of Kent. Here is a round-up of the day’s speakers, contributed by several of our members.

The second one-day conference got off to a flying start with inspiring lectures from two of east Kent’s finest archaeologists. Opening the event was Keith Parfitt of Canterbury Archaeological Trust, who provided an expert and entertaining summary of the investigations at Ringlemere. He discussed the evolution of the site from a place of Mesolithic activity to a late Neolithic henge (perhaps the first to be certainly identified in Kent), and the henge’s re-use during the Early Bronze Age when a low mound and wooden structure (perhaps associated with the famous gold cup) were added. He also illustrated the subsequent abandonment of the monument and its eventual redevelopment in the earlier Saxon period as a place of burial and later settlement. See also our front cover story on Ringlemere in this Newsletter.

From Ringlemere we journeyed across the Wantsum Channel to see a picture of Iron Age Thanet presented by Ges Moody, Deputy Director of the Trust for Thanet Archaeology. He began by reviewing the early discoveries made by pioneer archaeologists, followed by more recent investigations. He demonstrated that, while most of the finds have been made on small scale excavations or observations, they all reveal elements of Iron Age occupation evidence which have been seen in more complete form during the open-area digs of large sites elsewhere. Ges highlighted the importance of combining all this disparate data with modern GIS technology to reveal sites in their landscape contexts. Using mapped data from the Trust’s own Sites & Monuments Register he showed that this analysis can reveal factors which influenced positioning of sites, suggest the potential functions of some, permit a reinterpretation of evidence and indicate the large size of some settlements which had otherwise only been sampled by piecemeal excavation.

Paul Hart

Sarah Pearson took the stage to outline some of the likely findings of the research project on The Town and Port of Sandwich up to the 16th century, of which Sarah is the architectural historian.

The documentary evidence begins with the extensive royal grant of land and rights to Christchurch Priory in 1023, around the strategically important Wantsum Channel. A fresh contour survey showed the church of St Clement as a central focus of the early town; by the 14th century the centre had shifted with the draining of adjacent marshland to the west. In terms of commercial activity, by the 12th century the town was second in size only to Canterbury and a significant entrepot for both coastal and international maritime traffic, defended from the mid 14th century by walls and ramparts. It was in decline by the mid 16th century, probably associated with the silting of the Wantsum, but revived with the arrival of different skills with the religious referees in the 1560’s.

Significant three-storey buildings remain from the early 14th century, now thought to have been for workshop or commercial use rather than domestic. There are few surviving domestic buildings before the 16th century. We await the publication of the Study with much interest.

Andrew Butcher presented a refreshing approach to the familiar disturbances of the 13th and 14th centuries, set in a ‘tendentious’ view of the work of historians covering the period from around 1200-1500. His own ‘pre-Marxist’ view of the peasantry and townspeople accepted that rebelliousness was present at all periods in the late Middle Ages. He described a ‘top-down’ sense of the culture or ‘pays’ of Kent, first in the period of settlement up to about 1000, and then in the following period of population growth, colonisation of the landscape and growing towns. All this implied a much higher degree of interaction of peasantry and Crown. He mentioned widespread awareness of political agitation and disturbances elsewhere and particularly the influence of the Low Countries. He also stressed the local consciousness of Thanet itself.

He then turned to the ‘micro’ – the Hundred of Ringslow, essentially modern Thanet, to provide evidence for the widespread weight of taxation, the local disturbances and the Inquisition held in Thanet in 1381 after Wat Tyler’s rebellion earlier in the year. It is his view that essentially the revolt had little to do with London, but all to do with Thanet and its identity.

This was a stimulating talk on an interesting subject, delivered at possibly record speed! It certainly livened up the traditional post-lunch ‘death spot’.

Charles Wood

Steve Clifton spoke about the KAS Abbey Farm Roman Villa training digs of 1996-2004, from the perspective of the diggers/trainees. He highlighted the great opportunity those digs had provided for KAS members and others to be fully involved and to develop their archaeological skills. He also spoke of the support, encouragement and expertise given by the professional archaeologists, the new information discovered and published about the site and especially about the enjoyment of everyone who had taken part.

The development of high-class Anglo-Saxon jewellery in Kent was discussed by Andrew Richardson, stressing initially that it was neither ‘Anglian’ nor ‘Saxon’. His talk was superbly illustrated with pictures of jewellery, mainly brooches, from both archaeological sites and metal-detecting finds. He also clearly demonstrated the contribution that computer mapping of finds can make to analysis and interpretation.

Christine Hodge

In ‘Fishing and Fishermen in Medieval Kent’, why, asked Sheila Sweetinburgh, should a Kent fisherman name their boat Robin Hood? Most boats were named after saints, birds, flowers or even the Trinity. The biggest of the 20-odd types of specialized

boat displaced as much as 25 tons, carried a crew of 15, and were passed down through the family at a value of £600 or so. The big catch was herring, trawled early in the season off Newcastle before following shoals down to Yarmouth and later to Sandwich. This last port was required to send 40,000 herrings a year to Christchurch Priory at Canterbury where the monks were expected to eat fish all year round and not merely during Advent and Lent. Where the shoreline was distant from permanent hamlets, the fishermen built cabins to store rope, sails, oars, lines, hooks, boots, breeches and, above all, the many varieties of sometimes heavy and expensive nets. The industry was important throughout the Kent shoreline, and although Sheila couldn’t explain the ‘Robin Hood’ naming, she could tell us much about inheritance and family structure – and the important roles played by fish wives – from her analysis of documents.

Paul Bennett, in the breathlessly illuminating style for which he is known, set out to demolish the idea (still illustrated in the Museum in Canterbury), that in AD410 the city stopped being Roman and became Anglo-Saxon. Already by the late 4th century, Roman Kent was undergoing rapid and profound change and the garrisons on the shore, far from being disciplined regiments, were a ragged Dad’s Army full of local adolescents reminiscent of young Pike rather than any aspiring centurion. The great 4th century parish boundary at Ickham was supplied with scrap metal by the local Stoppe & Son and no less than 6 mills – one of them a horizontal Trellis mill – churned out agricultural accessories in Gennem bolt buckets. The transformation of sub-Roman society and economy presaged peace after Richborough replaced Dover as the gateway from Europe, half the Rich gate city was shut off to become a metal workshop; the North gate city wall survived as the most complete piece of Roman walling in Britain, and experiments with pottery and tiles evolved which far outlived AD410 in case of continuity and rebirth.

David Binnsigan