Lyn Palmer
Early explorations and the Antiquarians
‘Antiquarians’ of the 16th to early 19th century were the first people to investigate the past. They were usually gentlemen of some wealth, able to spend time visiting places of interest. Visits to Kent and its monuments were described in detail; the writings of some still exist and we can be grateful for information about sites long-since vanished. In 1576 William Lambarde produced ‘A Perambulation of Kent’, the first English county history of its kind, ‘conteining the description, hystorie, and customes of that shyre’.
Antiquarians recognised standing Roman remains, such as Richborough fort, for what they were, but had very little knowledge of preceding, or immediately succeeding, periods. Their focus was mainly on medieval buildings, the historical documents of church and state and the history of landed estates. In 1719 John Harris’s History of Kent concentrated on the medieval period onwards, except for the Roman forts.
As the 18th century progressed, objects and remains whose date and function were unknown generated more interest. This led to features such as earthworks and standing stones being noted and described. William Stukeley, perhaps the best-known antiquarian for his work at Avebury and Stonehenge, visited the Medway Megaliths in addition to Roman sites.
Image: Stukeley's 18th century illustration of Kit's Coty
Kent has many Saxon cemeteries, and surviving burial mounds presented the antiquarians with visible archaeology. Throughout the 18th century, artefacts were unearthed from Saxon graves, often brooches and weapons. Their discoverers could not believe that this obvious wealth and wonderful workmanship was anything other than Roman; in 1730 Dr Cromwell Mortimer attributed Saxon burials on Chartham Down to Roman soldiers killed in action during the incursions of 55 and 54BC!
The most prolific explorer of Saxon cemeteries was Bryan Fausset, who between 1759 and 1773 opened up around 800 burials in East Kent. This disturbance of burials for the sake of their contents would be considered unthinkable today unless they were under threat. However, Fausset did keep extremely good records of his work, despite perpetuating the idea that the graves were those of ‘Romans Britonised’ or vice versa. Eventually published as Inventorium Sepulchrale, his work remains central to studies of Saxon Kent.
The true date of Saxon burials was finally recognised by James Douglas, who dug mainly in north Kent towards the end of the 18th century. Douglas had been an army engineer and realised the necessity of planning and surveying sites; his work led the way for the future, although his ideas about chronology were only slowly accepted.
Perhaps the most famous antiquarian book about Kent is Edward Hasted’s enormous History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, published at the turn of the 18th century. Hasted’s parish-by-parish survey described the antiquities within each parish and included prehistoric as well as Roman and later finds. He still had though, no realistic chronology with which to order these finds.
Industrial expansion
Increasing industrialisation during the 19th century saw the construction of railways and canals, the expansion of towns, and in Kent, the growth of military installations, especially on the coast. In the process, much new archaeology was exposed, but much was also destroyed. Kent’s large-scale extraction industries destroyed many archaeological sites but also brought to light many remarkable finds, often bought by researchers from the workmen who found them.
The Kent Archaeological Society
Excavation of sites began in earnest in the mid 19th century, with the Kent Archaeological Society (initiated in 1857 and one of the earliest county societies), sponsoring work, at that time mainly on Saxon sites. The Society is still very active today. It publishes an annual round-up of local research, Archaeologia Cantiana, and has a library and a collection of artefacts held at Maidstone Museum. Many of Kent’s museums started life at this time as it became accepted that artefacts should be gathered in public collections.
It was not until the later 19th century, however, that investigation of prehistoric sites provided knowledge about these periods. Excavations of Bronze Age barrows at Ringwould, Iron Age cremations from Aylesford by Arthur Evans and most importantly, Palaeolithic sites in the Ebbsfleet Valley by Flaxman Spurell, all provided new insights. Indeed, the Palaeolithic had not even been recognised in the early 19th century until man-made tools were found with the bones of extinct animals in the Somme Valley, France. Antiquarians such as Benjamin Harrison and Henry Stopes built up collections of stone tools, adding greatly to knowledge of prehistory in the west of the county.
Image: Benjamin Harrison outside Oldbury rock shelter (Kent Archaeological Society)
Until the acceptance of Darwin’s theories of evolution, propounded in the mid 19th century, there was no concept of the great depth of time over which humanity had evolved, the creation having been fixed at 4004BC by Bishop Ussher in the mid 17th century. Methods of classifying periods began to emerge, that of the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages still central to archaeological thought today. Gradually artefacts were assigned rough dates based on their fabric and style.
Charles Roach Smith was a leading figure in Kent’s archaeology. A founding member of the Archaeological Association in 1844, his work on Roman artefacts and structures formed the basis of much later research. Another prominent figure was George Payne, who kept a record of finds unearthed in building work and quarries in north Kent and did much fieldwork. He instigated Rochester Museum for the collection and display of local archaeology. His listing of findspots and sites in Kent with a map and gazetteer was an idea which every county eventually came to adopt as the Sites & Monuments Record, now known as the Historic Environment Record (HER).
The 20th century
The Victoria County Histories (VCH) were compiled by various authors travelling each county. Kent’s VCH, published in 1908, showed that understanding of the past had increased greatly since Hasted’s work a century before, particularly for the Saxon period. The Roman VCH summary did not appear until the 1930s; it was more detailed, reflecting the concentration on Roman remains over the previous two centuries.
Work at several visible prehistoric sites took place in the early 20th century – at the Neolithic long barrows of Coldrum and Juliberries, and at the Iron Age hillforts of Oldbury and Bigberry. Not until ways of revealing archaeology hidden to the naked eye, such as geophysical techniques and aerial photography, were developed later that century did investigation of the ‘invisible’ take place. The Roman period remained the focus of work, including lengthy investigations at Richborough by Bushe Fox between the 1920s and 40s.
Image: Excavation at Coldrum long barrow in the 1920s (Kent Archaeological Society)
Archaeology in Kent after the Second World War
World War II stopped most work. During the next two decades, a resurgence of interest was fuelled by bomb damage in Dover and Canterbury. Canterbury’s centre has had more than two thousand years of continuous occupation; unfortunately much of the city’s Roman gates and walls were removed in the 18th century, but the bomb-damaged eastern half was investigated after the war, whilst more recently the Whitefriars development led to extensive excavation. Another notable post-war excavation took place at Lullingstone Roman Villa during the 1950s, by Col.Meates.
Archaeology in Kent today
Archaeology was mostly an amateur pursuit until the earlier 20th century; with little structure in place for funding excavation, aside from university departments and county or local societies. During the 1970’s, archaeological units emerged from previously amateur groups, with full time staff intent on rescuing the past from obliteration through increasing development. New planning rules in the early 1990s required that archaeology be taken into account at the earliest stages of the planning process. Today, excavation is mainly in advance of development - of roads, housing, industry or services though local societies continue to carry out their own research and still undertake excavations. This has led to a huge increase in knowledge, with an ever-expanding HER and archive of reports.
The Channel Tunnel Rail Link cut a swathe through Kent during the 1990s. Investigation and subsequent monitoring saw it become the biggest archaeological project ever undertaken in Britain. Large areas were revealed simultaneously using ‘strip, map and sample’ techniques. Over forty of the most important sites were excavated, including settlement at White Horse Stone , Pepper Hill Roman cemetery and Saxon graves at Saltwood.
Kent’s first County Archaeologist was appointed in 1989; a team of a dozen or so archaeologists and a Conservation Architect now works to care for the county’s heritage. Their work includes assessing development areas for archaeological potential and ensuring that any remains are treated appropriately, maintaining the Historic Environment Record database, advising on listed and historic buildings, and carrying out a range of projects designed to ensure that Kent’s heritage is cared for, recorded and promoted.
