Land at Westborough School, Hambleton Court, Maidstone, Kent
TQ 7390 5515; Stuart Holden; Excavation September-October 2004; KWHC 04
By Stuart Holden
This work follows on from an evaluation undertaken in July 2004.
Running in a northwest-southeast orientation from the northern limit of excavation and to the western side of the site, a substantial ditch measuring some 3m in width and nearly 2m deep was recorded. The fills of this cut contained pottery dating to the Bronze Age and an assemblage of finely polished flints. The purpose of these flints is yet to be revealed. Further research is currently being undertaken to unravel the mystery surrounding the objects and this page will be updated when more information is available.
Having completely silted up, the ditch had fallen into disuse for long enough for features to be cut into the fills before being truncated by re-cutting, again during the Bronze Age. The feature was purposefully backfilled prior to the cutting of a narrower ditch that respected the same alignment but which returned to the southwest and was traced to the southern limit of the site. This contained pottery dating to the Iron Age and also shows signs of being re-cut.
Isolated features such as pits and postholes were cut on either side of both ditches and contained cultural material spanning the Bronze and Iron Ages. On the western side of the site, a colluvial deposit was identified and slotted, producing pottery sherds dating from the Bronze Age through to the Romano-British period.
The cultural material recovered from the site suggests occupation spanning from the early to mid Bronze Age to Late Iron Age. The presence of a high quantity of pottery suggests domestic settlement with some industrial activities undertaken-indicated by a number of burnt features, including a possible hearth or kiln, and the collection of pieces of slag.
Mixed natural deposits, including Ragstone outcrops, brickearth and fine gravels were recorded between 69.70m to 67.50m OD.
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