Stone Castle, Dartford;
TQ 5582 1745; (Cassian Hall); evaluation; 11-19 September 2000; Copthorne Homes; GRN00
Seventeen trenches were investigated at the site. A layer of colluvial hillwash, 0.6-0.9m thick was recorded overlying a layer of large flint nodules with a mid-brown clay/silt. A number of flint flakes and a copper alloy pin were recovered from within the colluvial layer.
A semi-circular arrangement of posts was discovered to the West of the site, presumably part of a circular structure. The structure comprised two arcs of postholes and two small pits. The colluvium in the centre of the structure yielded a fragment of pottery and a flint flake. Two parallel ditches were also recorded to the east of the structure. A number of other features were observed including a small sub-rectangular posthole, an ovoid pit, the fill of which contained burnt and struck flint and two possible stakeholes.
A N-S aligned ditch contained Romano-British pottery fragments and a N-S aligned ditch produced Roman ceramic fragments from the fill's surface. A sub-rectangular cut, which yielded ceramic fragments, tegula fragments, struck flints and animal bone, was possibly the butt end of another ditch. Three further ditches were encountered in the NW of the site, one of which contained ceramic fragments and animal bone. A layer of plough soil c. 0.3m thick was recorded at the top of all of the trenches.
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