Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Small mound of uncertain function identified from aerial photographs on Cliffe Marshes. Possibly related to salt panning? One of many such features in this area.

Monument Types

• MOUND (Unknown date)
• SALTERN? (Unknown date)

Full description

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Small mound, many similar mounds in this area. (1)

The earthwork remains of a large oval mound, possibly a medieval saltern mound, located at TQ 7456 7756 adjacent to a small water-filled creek in Cliffe Marshes. The mound measured approximately 16m x 24m with traces of a slight ditch around, possibly formerly water-filled and linking into the adjacent creek. The mound was seen as an earthwork on aerial photographs taken in 1947, and could be seen as a cropmark, possibly with some remaining height, on Google Earth imagery taken in 2007.

Saltern mounds are the result of large-scale salt manufacturing where brine was extracted from salt-rich sands and sediments, concentrated and evaporated using process known as sleeching. The discarded waste material from the process built up around the production area into a sizeable mound, often with a hollow in the centred where a hut stood. These medieval saltern mounds are typically described as floriate in form because of their irregular lobed formation of dumped waste. They often occur in clusters around former and surviving tidal water-courses within the marsh. There has been considerable reclamation and subsequent sea wall construction since the medieval period which has isolated these sites from the sea.

Many of these mounds were subsequently utilised as sheepfolds, sheep washes and stock refuges in the post medieval period because of their slightly elevated position in the readily flooded marshes.

Roman finds have been extracted from some of these sites, but are believed to be from the lower levels and not associated with the mounds. Post-Roman flooding and silt deposition has resulted in Roman sites lying typically several feet below the current land surface.

This site was mapped from aerial photographs as part of the English Heritage: Hoo Peninsula Landscape Project. (2-3)

<1> RAF CPE/UK 1923 F4033 (16-01-47) (OS Card Reference). SKE48956.

<2> 1946, Photograph (Photograph (Print)). SWX9632.

<3> 1946, Photograph (Photograph (Print)). SWX9633.

<4> 1947, Photograph (Photograph (Print)). SWX9863.

Sources and further reading