Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

There have been various theories about a line of sarsen stones in Addington and mentions of a link between the Addington burial mounds and Coldrum. Modern thinking is that the ragged alignment of sarsen stones is the result of field clearance. The stones roughly follow an old hedgerow.

Monument Types

• STANDING STONE? (Unknown date)

Full description

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(TQ 65516047) Stone Circle (NR) (Remains of) (1) (TQ 65516047) SARSEN-STONES (NR) (2) Benjamin Harrison found these stone arranged in a line suggesting a Via Sacra between Coldrum [TQ 66 SE 2] and Addington Circles [TQ 65 NE 13 & 24] (Not mentioned in Harrison of Ightham, 1928 (E Harrison)). (3) From Coldrum Farm a footpath runs due south to Addington and the first part of this in a field, is marked out by five prostrate stones some little distance apart. The path also has the appearance of having been raised. Further along, the path runs through a wood and there six other stones may be seen, one of considerable size. This path may have formed a 'via sacra'. (4) There are scattered blocks of stone in the vicinity of Addington supposed to indicate avenues but no evidence of such was discovered. (5) Dismisses theory of sacred ways "...11 stones in a distance of a mile is poor enough evidence..." (6) Six earthfast stone, large sarsens, their surfaces flush with grass of field. On the southernmost is a mark suspiciously like an artificial one. Probbly an artifical group. (7) Most certainly not a megalithic monument. Seven sarsens embedded to surface in grass in ragged alignment almost following old line of hedgerow suggesting that the stones were pulled to the side of field during ploughing. (8) A row of sarsens, as described by Jessup (auth 8): they lie at the edge of a cultivated field and are probably the result of field clearance. (9)

<1> OS 6" 1909 (OS Card Reference). SKE48324.

<2> OS 6" 1936 (OS Card Reference). SKE48337.

<3> Rec 6" (E R Harrison 1928) (OS Card Reference). SKE49030.

<4> 'Ightham: The Story...' 1907 47H (F J Bennet) (OS Card Reference). SKE44207.

<5> Col Cant 1893 137ff (C Payne) (OS Card Reference). SKE39079.

<6> Roch Nat vol 6 1928 50ff (Cook) (OS Card Reference). SKE49284.

<7> Rec 6" (O G S Crawford 4 8 1923) (OS Card Reference). SKE49043.

<8> Corr 6" (R F Jessup 1947) (OS Card Reference). SKE39278.

<9> F1 AC 27.07.59 (OS Card Reference). SKE41836.

<10> Field report for monument TQ 66 SE 1 - July, 1959 (Bibliographic reference). SKE3548.

Sources and further reading