Kent’s New Castle: Newnham Castle
By Paula Jardine-Rose
In June of this year the Wychling, Doddington and Newnham Historical Research Group uncovered a previously undocumented Norman Castle during their summer community dig.
After gauging interest for local history within the three parishes, I set up the group in May 2010. In August 2011 we ran our second community dig, excavating a 24 x 2m section of Roman road. Within the hillwash and road construction material we found Bronze Age pottery. This pottery could only have come from the hill above the dig site, prompting us to take a look at that area in the autumn of 2011.
The site is marked as a Motte and Bailey on the O.S. map, though historically this is not supported by any documentary or archaeological evidence. George Payne tells us in his Collectanea Cantiana that he visited the site with Charles Roach Smith in 1880 to inspect the earthworks. Rather than giving his own account of his findings, he instead relates George Bedo’s account of the site c.1860. Bedo noted a mound surrounded by a ditch. It was the opinion of Bedo and latterly Payne and Roach Smith that the mound was of early ‘British origin’, however, our investigations and discoveries this year suggest otherwise.
The group undertook resistivity of the mound and over part of the ditch, plus an area that had shown up as a rectangular crop mark to the north of the mound. After processing the results, we noted an unusually dense material in the ditch fill, possibly explained by the mound material having been levelled into it over many years. The northern crop mark showed nothing tangible, but, by contrast, upon the mound we had a square feature with an open centre. The resistivity indicated a feature around 9m square with a 4.5m internal space. This meant that the ‘walls’, if that’s what we had, were a massive 2m thick. We dug a few test pits which revealed, for the most part, chalk and soil rubble, with some oyster shell and the occasional sherd of medieval pottery. One test pit was put in directly over an area of dense oyster shell which proved to also contain a large quantity of the same medieval pottery. Fieldwalking the site also produced a few worked flints and sherds of Bronze Age pottery.
Based on these initial results we arranged to conduct our ‘Summer Dig’ at the site, to explore the square feature and also the ditch. At the beginning of June we opened a 5m square trench over the north east corner of our square feature, eventually confirming that we did indeed have 2m-thick walls. The walls were constructed from nodular flint laid in courses with a rough sandy lime mortar. In the centre we had demolition material of flint, mortar, limewashed plaster, burnt clay and some dressed ashlar blocks of Reigate stone. We also had some pottery with a provisional date of mid-12th century, and a Roman brooch, currently being researched.
The outside of the structure became more curious, as the corner we had uncovered was rounded, and the east wall exhibited a semicircular projection. In order to resolve these curiosities we decided to uncover the whole structure to get the complete ground plan. With this done, we found that we had two further rounded corners and a square projection to the northwest.
The second excavation concerned the ditch to the southwest of the structure. We took out an 11m trench across the ditch. The first 2m depth was excavated and we were still in various ‘modern’ mound levelling events. After augering to the bottom of the ditch, which is cut into natural chalk and flint, we concluded that we had a further 1.8m to go. At this stage we took stock of events, deciding in the end to hire a large mechanical digger to scoop out the ditch in stages, with soil samples being taken directly from the bucket. With the skill of the driver, we were able to follow the ditch profile exactly, eventually reaching the bottom after 4.5m. At the top of the ditch, mound side, we also uncovered three large post holes which may have formed a revetment to hold back the mound material.
With the structural evidence, together with the pottery, ditch profile and stratified 12th century pottery within the ditch, we are now confident that we have discovered a Norman Castle. Its ground plan is unusual for a mid-12th century date, there being only one parallel that we are aware of, in Pembrokeshire. In the report for this Welsh castle, it is considered to be ‘unique’ in having rounded corners.
The castle was built directly on the natural clay soil that caps the chalk. Excavation revealed that the ‘castle builders’ were camped out during the construction period, with bone, oyster shell, pottery and burning, evident upon the clay surface to the outside of the Castle. Once built, the ditch was then dug out and the material thrown up against the castle walls, resulting in the ground floor room becoming buried within the heart of the mound.
Further investigations are due to take place over the autumn in readiness for the 2013 season of excavation, and an interim excavation report will be published in due course.