Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Cropmarks of trackways and boundaries are visible in fields east of Sarre on 1990s aerial photographs. Although not securely dated, it is likely that these features are later prehistoric or Romano-British in date. Several large pit-like features are also visible, these are tentatively interpreted as former chalk pits and are likely to be of post-medieval date.

Monument Types

• ENCLOSURE (Unknown date)
• LINEAR EARTHWORK (Unknown date)
• PIT (Unknown date)
• TRACKWAY (Unknown date)

Full description

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Cropmarks of linear features and large pit-like features are faintly visible in a field east of Sarre on 1990s Ordnance Survey vertical aerial photographs [1]. Cropmarks are only visible in the extreme east of the field, the rest of it apparently being not conducive to cropmark production. The dominant feature in the group is a sinuous ditch; it runs for 440m aligned approximately N-S then turns gradually through a right angle to follow a roughly E-W course for 250m. This feature is likely to be a boundary. Several other ditched features lie close to the E-W portion of the main ditch. These include fragments of several ditches running parallel to it and sections of an enclosure that appears to be butted onto it. The parallel ditches are likely to be sections of trackways. An early to mid Iron Age settlement (TR 26 NE 132) was excavated to the west of this site in the 1980s. It is likely that the cropmarks represent a continuation of this activity and are therefore Iron Age in date.

There are three large amorphous irregularly-shaped cropmarks overlapping with the trackways features. It is not clear whether these derive from large pits or spreads of material. It is possible that they are previously unrecorded chalk pits as such features are commonly recorded around Sarre on historic Ordnance Survey maps [2]. If so they are likely to be of post-medieval date.

A transcription of the features recorded from aerial photography exists within a GIS layer held by this HER [3].

<2> Ordnance Survey, 1858-73, Ordnance Survey 1:2500 1st Edition : 1872-1897 (Map). SWX11831.

<3> Wessex Archaeology, 2009-10, South-East Rapid Coastal Zone Assessment Survey - Aerial Photographic Transcriptions (Digital archive). SWX15705.

<3> Wessex Archaeology, 2011, South East Rapid Coastal Zone Assessment Survey - (SE RCZAS) Phase 1: National Mapping Programme Report (Unpublished document). SKE25955.

<3> Cornwall Council Historic Environment Projects and Gloucestershire County Council, 2011, South East Rapid Coastal Zone Assessment Survey National Mapping Programme Components 1&2: Results of NMP Mapping (Unpublished document). SKE25954.

Sources and further reading

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