Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Medieval Dane John Angle Tower is semicircular shaped in plan with an open back. Built in the late 15th century it has a battered ashlar plinth built against an earth revetment. A bank of earth was found running down from the top of the surviving city wall towards the ditch. This overlay the chalk footings of the tower.

Monument Types

• TOWER (Medieval - 1401 AD to 1500 AD)

Full description

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Medieval Dane John Angle Tower is semicircular shaped in plan with an open back. Built in the late 15th century it has a battered ashlar plinth built against an earth revetment.

In summer 1954 The Canterbury Excavation Committee excavated a trench within the Dane John Tower, part of the city defences. The trench was coded CXXVI DJ.
The trench covered the eastern half of the internal area of the Medieval tower. The tower was built of chalk on chalk footings, the lack of flint Roman footings indicated an entirely Medieval date for the tower. An examination of the city wall at the point where it was abutted by the west side of the tower showed that the chalk wall of the tower was contiguous with the irregular face of the exposed wall-core, suggesting that the wall was decayed at this point, and lacked its facing stones, when the tower was built against it. It was thought at first that the reason for this could be that a Roman external tower had originally abutted the wall here and had left a scar: lower flint footings could have lain below the chalk ones and not been observed because of incomplete excavation. This idea, however, can now be discounted in view of the discovery of remains of a Roman external tower 7.16m to the west in 1960 by F. Jenkins.
The scar could also have been caused by a rebuild of some sort during the Medieval period and is in fact the bond between new tower and the body of the city wall. In the course of time the tower had tipped forward and the gap filled with loose earth and flint.
A bank of earth was found running down from the top of the surviving city wall towards the ditch. This overlay the chalk footings of the tower. This could be a Medieval revetment of the wall angle or else the lowest level of tips designed to make solid the basement of the tower; or may be silt from the Dane John Mound after the Medieval wall fell into decay.

Frere, SS, Stow, S, and Bennett, P, 1982, Excavations on the Roman and Medieval Defences of Canterbury. (Monograph). SKE28530.

Rupert Austin, 2001, Personal Comment Rupert Austin, Inventory List (Unpublished document). SKE28531.

Sources and further reading