Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Roman inhumations and cremations, and Anglo-Saxon inhumations with grave goods including swords. The site is located on a plateau, that slopes to the south. ending 300m to the south, in a vertical Chalk cliff. OD 30-40m.

Monument Types

• CIST (CIST, Roman - 43 AD to 409 AD)
• CREMATION (CREMATION, Roman - 43 AD to 409 AD)
• INHUMATION (INHUMATION, Roman - 43 AD to 409 AD)
• BURIAL (BURIAL, Early Medieval or Anglo-Saxon - 410 AD to 1065 AD)

Associated Finds

• SHERD (Roman - 43 AD to 409 AD)
• SWORD (Early Medieval or Anglo-Saxon - 410 AD to 1065 AD)

Full description

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[TR 37596446] Celtic Remains Found [NAT] (1) Under 77 Cambridge Terrace an urn of brown ware, a Samian patera, a glass lachry-matory, some very large nails and many human bone fragments mixed with several teeth of a horse were found some time before 1878. About 50 yards SW of this, when foundations were being dug for a new wing of St Augustine's College c1895, a cist of large stones containing a male and female skeleton, many fragments of cinerary urns and portions of a Samian patera, was found about 4 feet below the surface; an ox horn and teeth and probable pig teeth were also found. (2) Near Three Mills, Roman urns with calcined bones were found about 1846 in proximity to Saxon swords placed beside skeletons. The site is near the junction of West Cliff Road and Grange Road. (3,4) 'A' - 77 Cambridge Terrace, now 77 West Cliff Road is centred TR 37626457. 'B' - The c1895 wing of St Augustine's College is centred TR 37586445. 'C' - The Three Mills site was not identified but the junction of West Cliff and Grange Road is centred TR 37516450. The present whereabouts of the finds from these sites was not ascertained. No further finds have been reported. (5) TR 375645. (Sited to nearest 50m) Romano-British Remains. Site No.183. (6) TR 375645 ante 1847. Roman urns with calcined bones were found near the 3 Mills, very close to Anglo-Saxon skeletons with swords. c1877. The bones of a man, several very large nails, as if from a coffin and some horses' teeth were found beneath what is now 77 Cambridge Terrace, very near some Roman pottery. 'The skeleton of a Saxon chief, with that of a woman' and some pot, chiefly Roman, were found when a new wing was being added to St Augustine's College. All these finds were made within a very limited area. (7) At this mixed RB/AS burial site, urns were found amongst other remains in 1846, bones, nails and horse teeth c1877 at a location now 77 Cambridge Terrace. Skeletal remains and pottery were also found during the addition of a new wing to St Augustine's College. (8) At Ramsgate, in a position corresponding to that of the Broadstairs Cemetery, on the flat tableland above the West Cliff, where West Cliff Road comes out into the open near St Augustine's, there were found about 1840 some mixed burials, in which Roman cinerary urns with burnt bones had near them skeletons with Saxon-looking swords by their sides. This use by the immigrants of an older place of sepulture and the prominance of weapons suggest an early date. (9) Additional reference (10)

<1> OS 1:2500 1939 (OS Card Reference). SKE48197.

<2> Hist and Ant of St Lawrence 1895 263 and footnote (C Cotton) (OS Card Reference). SKE43771.

<3> JBAA 2 1847 281 (C R Smith) (OS Card Reference). SKE44889.

<4> VCH Kent 1 1908 386 (R A Smith) (OS Card Reference). SKE50878.

<5> F1 CFW 11-OCT-63 (OS Card Reference). SKE42535.

<6> Thanet The Arch Heritage c 1982 10 (Thanet Dist Council and Isle of Thanet Arch Unit) (OS Card Reference). SKE49880.

<7> A Gazetteer of Early Anglo Saxon Burial Sites 1964 132 (A L S Meaney) (OS Card Reference). SKE32787.

<8> Isle of Thanet Arch Unit Sites and Mons Archive 1988 Record No 183 (OS Card Reference). SKE44703.

<9> The Arts in Early England 4 1915 699-700 (G Baldwin Brown) (OS Card Reference). SKE50098.

<10> Field report for monument TR 36 SE 6 - October, 1963 (Bibliographic reference). SKE6257.

Sources and further reading