Exploring Kent's Past

It should not be assumed that this site is publicly accessible and it may be on private property. Do not trespass.

Monument details

Summary

Belgic pottery and brooches found

Monument Types

• FINDSPOT (Iron Age - 800 BC to 42 AD)

Associated Finds

• BEAKER (Iron Age - 800 BC to 42 AD)
• BOWL (Iron Age - 800 BC to 42 AD)
• BROOCH (Iron Age - 800 BC to 42 AD)

Full description

If you do not understand anything on this page please contact us.

In May 1962, during the digging of a sewer trench, a Belgic butt- beaker, a smaller beaker, and the fragments of two bronze brooches were found. The farmer (a) indicated the exact find spot at TR 36095261, close to an inspection cover [see Illustration Card]. The finds are now in the Deal Castle Museum. (1) A burial of the Belgic period was found in May 1962, about 2 feet below the surface during the excavation of a sewer trench at Sholden, near Deal. The trench ran alongside the footpath from Sholden Street to Court Lodge Farm; the position of the burial was 110 yards E of Sholden Street. The group consisted of two pottery vessels and two bronze brooches (see illustration card no 2). Sholden a new site for finds of the Belgic period, is only 1 mile N of Mill Hill, Upper Deal, well known for the two Belgic grave groups with brooches, and for several other finds of funerary pottery and brooches lacking details of association. The butt-beaker places the Sholden burial in Dr Ann Birchall's third or "Late" Belgic group of the Aylesford-Swarling sequence, beginning about 10 BC and lasting until the Roman period. The carinated bowl is infrequent in Kent, but is represented in the urnfield at Cheriton, near Folkestone, as well as at Aylesford. The brooches from Sholden belong to the "Colchester" type III of the early C1 AD. This type is frequent on Belgic sites over a wide area of Britain, from Kent in the E to Gloucestershire in the W and from Dorset in the S as far N as Lincolnshire. The grave-group is therefore referred to the two decades c.10 BC - AD 10. Cremation burial associated with a butt-beaker, small carinated bowl and two bronze "Colchester" brooches found in 1962. (3)

Additional Info and references (4-7)

Oxford Archaeological Unit, 1996, Proposed Supermarket Development, West Street, Deal, Kent (Unpublished document). SKe7108.

<1> F1 CFW 23-APR-65 (OS Card Reference). SKE42724.

<2> Information Mr Mount Court Lodge Farm Church Lane Deal (OS Card Reference). SKE44472.

<3> Arch Cant 82 1967 221-4 (JD Ogilvie and GC Dunning) (OS Card Reference). SKE35741.

<4> Burial Practices in Iron Age Britain 1981 iii 385 (R Whimster) (OS Card Reference). SKE38435.

<5> Field report for monument TR 35 SE 49 - April, 1965 (Bibliographic reference). SKE6107.

<6> Oxford Archaeological Unit, 1996, Proposed Supermarket Development, West Street, Deal, Kent (Unpublished document). SKE7108.

<7> Oxford Archaeological Unit, 1996, Proposed Supermarket Development, West Street, Deal, Kent (Unpublished document). SKE7108.

Sources and further reading