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Monument details

HER Number:TQ 67 SW 1582
Type of record:Monument
Name:Early Roman trackway Springhead, Northfleet

Summary

Excavation in 2000-2002 found a a small part of a 1st century Roman trackway which lay on the valley side 45m to the north-east of the Ritual pools. This trackway may have originated in the early Roman period, though a slightly later date is perhaps more likely as its course appears to have followed that of a mid-Roman enclosing ditch. Little over 6 m of the metallings survived, it was up to 1.5 m wide and several wheel ruts. (location accurate to the nearest 1m based on available information)


Grid Reference:TQ 6181 7265
Map Sheet:TQ67SW
Parish:GRAVESEND, GRAVESHAM, KENT

Monument Types

Full description

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Excavation in 2000-2002 found a a small part of a 1st century Roman trackway which lay on the valley side 45m to the north-east of the Ritual pools. This trackway may have originated in the early Roman period, though a slightly later date is perhaps more likely as its course appears to have followed that of a mid-Roman enclosing ditch, rather than the reverse. This trackway had suffered from a considerable degree of erosion and only a little over 6 m of the metallings survived, lying within a shallow hollow way which ran south-east to north-west, at 90° to the slope. It was up to 1.5 m wide and several wheel ruts (0.80–1.0 m apart). The single surviving metalled surfacewas overlain by deposits containing a few sherds of mid-Roman pottery in an otherwise early Roman assemblage. How long the trackway remained in use is uncertain, as is its purpose, though it probably ran down to the edge of the Ebbsfleet to the north-west. (1)


<1> 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 The Late Iron Age, Roman, Saxon, and Medieval Landscape (Unpublished document).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>XYUnpublished 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. [Mapped feature: #106208 trackway, ]