Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

During the East Kent Access Route excavations (2009-2011) a group of middle iron age features were discovered north of the trapezoidal enclosure. The features included rubbish and quarry pits, one of which contained a complete horse burial. This group of features seems to have remained in use for several centuries with most pottery dating to the middle iron age but some to the late iron age / early Roman period. (location accurate to the nearest 1m based on available information)

Monument Types

• GULLY (Iron Age - 800 BC to 42 AD)
• PIT (Iron Age - 800 BC to 42 AD)
• QUARRY (Iron Age - 800 BC to 42 AD)
• ANIMAL BURIAL (Middle Iron Age - 400 BC to 101 BC)
• FENCE? (Middle Iron Age - 400 BC to 101 BC)
• INHUMATION (Middle Iron Age - 390 BC to 200 BC) + Sci.Date

Associated Finds

• POTTERY ASSEMBLAGE (Middle Iron Age to Roman - 400 BC to 409 AD)

Full description

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During the East Kent Access Route excavations (2009-2011) a group of middle iron age features were discovered north of the trapezoidal enclosure.

A narrow gully lay roughly parallel to the northern side of the enclosure. The south east end of this gully intersected with an earlier set of field boundary ditches on the same alignment, while the other end terminated just over 10m west of the intersection of the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age palisade ditch and early Bronze Age Barrow. Although physically quite slight this gully seems to have marked a boundary of some considerable significance and permanence, which appears to have divided the activities carried out in the Trapezoidal enclosure from the agricultural landscape to the immediate north east. The line of this boundary was followed features into the Roman period. Of particular interest was a pit which contained the complete skeleton of a horse. By the middle iron age an extensive cluster of features lay to the north of the trapezoidal enclosure, between the enclosure ditch and the boundary marked by the gully. This area, some 13m at its widest, was very heavily pitted, with a very extensive sequence of intercutting shallow rubbish and quarry pits. There was little datable material but those features that did contain material indicate a sequence beginning in the early to middle iton age and continuing intermittently into the early roman period. A grave within this group of features was dated to 390-200 cal BC. (information summarised from source) (1-2)

Fragments of the gully described above (authority 1, 2) and a large pit were visible as cropmarks in NMR 23201/15 04-AUG-2003. They were mapped as part of the Historic England Isle of Thanet project in 2024. (3)

<1> Oxford Wessex Archaeology Joint Venture, 2011, East Kent Access (Phase II), Thanet, Kent: Post-Excavation Assessment Volume 1 (Unpublished document). SKE29279.

<2> Andrews et al, 2015, Digging The Gateway: Archaeological Landscapes of South Thanet. The Archaeology of East Kent Access (Phase III) Vol 1: The sites (Monograph). SKE55517.

<3> Historic England Archive, 1920-2024, Historic England Archive Specialist oblique aerial photographs, NMR 23201/15 04-AUG-2003 (Archive). SKE57106.

Sources and further reading

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