Time Team at Eastry, 3rd to 5th May 2005
In early May Channel 4's Time Team descended on Eastry for one of their three-day excavations. The aim was to explore Eastry's Anglo-Saxon origins, and in particular to see if any evidence of the Villa Regales of the Kentish kings could be located.
The focus of attention was a hill to the north of Eastry on which the White Cliffs Metal Detecting Club had found a number of early Anglo-Saxon metal artefacts. Time Team also investigated sites in and around Eastry Court, whose origins as a Medieval manor house adjacent to the church have led to the suggestion that this was the site of the Villa Regales. In the event, very little hard evidence of Anglo-Saxon activity was located at the sites in the village. On the hill, no burials or structures of Anglo-Saxon date were located. However, a metal detector survey during the course of filming produced a silver garnet-inlaid brooch fragment and D-shaped buckle loop (both of 6th century date) and the head of a cruciform brooch (late 5th century). On the summit of the hill the base of a Medieval post-mill was located. This was excavated by the Dover Archaeological Group. The fill of this contained the base of a 6th century glass cone beaker. Thus the evidence for high status activity on this hill during the 5th to early 7th centuries continues to accrue.
Time Team's visit to Eastry provided a useful boost to our understanding of this important Kentish village, and was also an opportunity to demonstrate the team-work and professionalism of Kent's amateur archaeologists and metal detectorists, something that Time Team were very impressed with. The episode on Eastry will air sometime between January to March next year.
TOP: Andrew Richardson describes a cruciform brooch found by a member of the White Cliffs Metal Detecting Club to Mick Aston.
ABOVE: The crossbars of the Medieval post-mill showed clearly.