Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Site discovered in August 1974 by members of the Dover sub-aqua club on the eastern side of Langdon Bay. The site consists of flat fissured chalk bedrock covered in parts by mobile sandy sediment. A hoards of 96 bronze objects (including 25 winged axes, 14 spatulate axes, 2 spearheads, 8 daggers and 24 palstaves) was purchased by the British Museum. More than 350 bronze objects including weapons, ornaments and scrap dating to 1100 BC have been found. This is probably a wreck site due to the close concerntration of finds, their qualitiy, and the undoubted French provenance.(location accurate to the nearest 10m based on available information)

Monument Types

• WRECK (Middle Bronze Age to Late Bronze Age - 1200 BC to 1000 BC)

Full description

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Site discovered in August 1974 by members of the Dover sub-aqua club on the eastern side of Langdon Bay. The site consists of flat fissured chalk bedrock covered in parts by mobile sandy sediment. A hoards of 86 bronze objects (including 25 winged axes, 14 spatulate axes, 2 spearheads, 8 daggers and 24 palstaves) was purchased by the British Museum. (1)

Systematic investigation of the area began after further finds were made in 1977 and 1978. Between 1975 and 1992 at the site has produced a further 271 finds bringing the overall total up to 357 bronze objects including tools, weapons, ornaments and scrap dating to 1200-1000 BC. (2)

The site, which is located 500 yards from the present white cliffs suggests a wreck possibly belonging to a trader or bronze-smith who was bringing a cargo across the channel in a small craft to a location in Dover harbour. The location of this material is tangible evidence of cross-Channel connections that, either from shipwreck or a ritual deposit soon after arrival provides a rare chance to view trade in action, rather than trade as inferred from redistributed material. However, no Bronze Age artefacts have been observed or recorded on site since 1990. (3)

Professor R.F Tylecote, Newcastle University, examined the damaged edges of some of the implements and was able to show in 1977 that the collection consisted of lead-free high tin bronzes. The weapons were normally cast in moulds of clay, stone or bronze from a bronze solution of about 12% tin and heated to around 900 degrees centigrade. The Langdon Bay site is of international significance and arguably the oldest known shipwreck site in northern Europe. The importance of the site lies in the breadth of its Bronze Age metalwork assemblage which is unparalleled in both maritime and terrestrial archaeology. (4-5)

No structural remains associated with a middle Bronze Age vessel have been identified in
Langdon Bay. The identification of the wreck site is based on the mapping and recovery of bronze artefacts thought to be the vessel’s cargo. It is however possible that the finds may represent deliberate Bronze Age maritime practice, rather than misadventure. The patterns in the data suggest that people in the Bronze Age were placing culturally and socially meaningful objects in the sea in the same way they were using large rivers and wet zones in the unsettled landscape for the deposition of weapons, ornaments and tools not found in burial contexts. (6)

Historic England received an application to assess the Langdon Bay Protected Wreck Site for de-designation (de-listing). The case was added to an on-going project which aims to carry out a national overview of Early Ships and Boats: prehistory to 1840, as part of the Listing Group’s strategic programme. While the Bronze Age material from Langdon Bay is clearly of high archaeological significance, there is no recent evidence of a wreck or further significant material surviving on the immediate site. However, given the significance of the recovered remains, the fact that further material would be vulnerable to loss if unprotected and the concerns of the respondents it is currently felt that protection should remain in place. De-listing is not therefore recommended at this time. (7)

Additional information (8-12)

<1> Simon Stevens and Brian Philp, 1976, Kent Archaeological Review: Major Discovery of Bronze Age Implements at Dover. Vol. 43, Kent Archaeological Review No 43 p67-72 (Stevens, S. (Article in serial). SKE31854.

<2> Cotswold Archaeology, 2016, Marine Assessment for Possible De-Designation: Langdon Bay Protected Wreck (Unpublished document). SKE51980.

<3> K. Muckelroy, 1981, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society: Middle Bronze Age Trade between Britain and Europe: A Maritime Perspective (Article in serial). SKE6707.

<4> Historic England, National Heritage List for England (Index). SKE29372.

<5> Museum of London, 2007, Leigh Technology College, Green Street Green Road, Dartford: An archaeological watching brief report. (Unpublished document). SKE13717.

<6> Alice A. V. Samson, 2006, Oxford Journal of Archaeology: Offshore Finds from the Bronze Age in North-Western Europe: The Shipwreck Scenario Revisited (Article in serial). SKE52186.

<7> Historic England, 2017, Langdon Bay, Middle Bronze Age Wreck Site, 1000059, de-listing assessment (Unpublished document). SKE32444.

<8> Needham, S., Dean, M.,, 1987, Congres Prehistorique de France 1984 (Article in serial). SKE6708.

<9> Coombes D, 1976, Archaeologia Atlantica (Article in serial). SKE6706.

<10> Cluttons, 2002, Desk-Based Assessment of Dover Eastern Docks Supply Main (Unpublished document). SKE8212.

<11> Barham, A. J. & Bates, M. B., 1991, A Preliminary Research Report on the Palaeoenvironmental & Geoarchaeological Significance of the North Kent Marshes (Unpublished document). SKE11863.

<12> 1980, Article Bronze Age wreck site Antiquity (Article in serial). SKE6705.

Sources and further reading

Related records

Related thematic articles

• Bronze Age Kent (Thematic Essay)