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Monument details
| HER Number: | TQ 67 SW 1535 |
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| Type of record: | Monument |
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| Name: | Early Roman Occupation Site, Ebbsfleet Valley - Cisterns |
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Summary
Enclosures and features which predate the villa complex on this site. The site consists of possible timber structures, wood and clay lined cisterns and an enclosure ditch.
Three cisterns or tanks were identified.
Location accurate to 2m based on available information.
| Grid Reference: | TQ 6163 7407 |
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| Map Sheet: | TQ67SW |
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| Parish: | SWANSCOMBE AND GREENHITHE, DARTFORD, KENT |
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Monument Types
- CISTERN (Roman - 43 AD? to 99 AD?)
- SITE (Roman - 43 AD? to 99 AD?)
Associated Finds
- TILE (Roman - 70 AD to 120 AD)
| Protected Status: | Selected Heritage Inventory for Natural England: Site of a Roman villa revealed by excavations. A bath building with moasics was also excavated. Some medieval features and possible prehistoric pits also located within this area. |
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Full description
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Early Roman site in use prior to the construction of Northfleet Villa (TQ 67 SW 38 & 1001). The site consists of possible timber structures suggested by post holes, an enclosure ditch which had steep sides and a stone lined "ankle-breaker" in the base, and a number of cisterns either wood or clay lined. An articulated horse skeleton and fragments of a mill stone were found in two of the wood line cisterns. (1)
A rectangular, clay-lined cistern measuring 2.54 m wide, 3.34 m long, and 0.40 m deep was identified. The pit was filled with a sequence of silty clay fills and charcoal-rich deposits. The fills produced building material, including tile and opus signinum, which presumably
derived from a demolished structure. The pit best fits within the early Roman period, possibly AD 70–120. Another clay-lined pit or tank was uncovered some 20 m south-west of the cistern. It was was rectangular in plan, 2.15 m long, 1.75 m wide and relatively shallow at 0.15 m deep A 0.12 m thick clay deposit on the edge of the feature suggests that the pit was clay-lined. A third tank was situated within the entrance of the later masonry east range and at the southern end of ditch 16723. It measured 3.0 m wide, 3.50 m long, and 1.0 m deep(2).
Location accurate to 2m based on available information.
<1> Oxford Archaeology, 2003, Ebbsfleet Valley Detailed Mitigation Works, Northfleet, Kent: Interim Statement (Unpublished document). SKE12256.
<2> Oxford Wessex Archaeology Joint Venture, 2010, Settling the Ebbsfleet Valley. CTRL Excavations at Springhead and Northfleet, Kent. The Late Iron Age, Roman, Saxon, and Medieval Landscape (Unpublished document). SKE31245.
Sources and further reading
| Cross-ref.
| Source description | | <1> | Unpublished document: Oxford Archaeology. 2003. Ebbsfleet Valley Detailed Mitigation Works, Northfleet, Kent: Interim Statement. |
| <2> | Unpublished document: Oxford Wessex Archaeology Joint Venture. 2010. Settling the Ebbsfleet Valley. CTRL Excavations at Springhead and Northfleet, Kent. The Late Iron Age, Roman, Saxon, and Medieval Landscape. |
Related records
| TQ 67 SW 297 | Part of: Early Roman Occupation Site, Ebbsfleet Valley (Monument) |
