Page:VCH Kent 1.djvu/406

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

A HISTORY OF KENT in which it links together the two most important Stone Age monuments of Kent, namely Kits Coty House and Coldrum. The ford across the Medway at Lower Hailing must have furnished a practically direct means of communication between these two cromlechs situated upon the southern slopes of the North Downs and within easily visible distance from each other. Another very early road through Kent appears to have run to the north of the North Downs in a direction corresponding irregularly with the general trend of the Roman Watling Street. It was con- nected at intervals with the Pilgrims' Way by cross-roads running approximately north and south. Colonel O. E. Ruck, F.S.A. Scot., has drawn the writer's attention to the fact that these prehistoric cross-roads are in several cases connected with prehistoric camps, as, for example, at Bigberry, Cobham, Ightham, and Westerham. The last-named road, indeed, is associated with at least two early earthwork strongholds, namely, that in Squerries Park, Westerham, and the camp at Holwood, Keston. The remaining traces of prehistoric roads in Kent are not perhaps either numerous or definite. Still there are in places traces of them. Some exist in West Kent, particularly near the neolithic hut-floors at Hayes Common,* and on other large spaces of open ground which have never been levelled by cultivation. Topographical List of Prehistoric Antiquities in Kent.' Addington. — Megalithic remains probably of the Neolithic Age [Gent. Mag. Aug. 1824, pp. III-12; Reliq. Oct. 1871 ; Jrch. Cant. xiii. 14, 16]. All Hallow's, Hoo. — Important hoard of twenty-seven bronze objects, mostly spear-heads, palstaves and socketed celts, but comprising also some rare forms [Evans, Bronze Imp. 214, 230, 467 ; Jrch. Cant. xi. 123-124]. Ash (near Wrotham). — Paleolithic implements [Evans, Stone Imp. 60S]. Ash (near Sandwdch). — British coin of Eppillus and Vosenos and one uninscribed [Evans, Coins, 50, 191, 207]. AsHFORD. — Bronze Age palstave now in the Mayer Collection, Liverpool [Evans, Bronze Imp. 81, 82]. Aylesford. — Palaeolithic implements [Evans, Stone Imp. 610]. Neolithic leaf-shaped arrow- head of flint found near Kits Coty House [Evans, Stone Imp. 378]. Megalithic remains, probably of the Neolithic Age at Kits Coty House [^if//^. Oct. i87i,p. 70, etc.]. Bronze Age graves and flat celt and two knife-daggers [Proc. Soc. Antiq. (Ser. 2), xvii. 376-77]. British coins, uninscribed and of Eppillus, and Amminus (?) [Evans, Coins, 122, 197, 354]. Gold ornaments of the Bronze Age _Arch. Cant. v. 41, 42 ; and ix. 12]. Bapchild. — British coin of Eppillus [Evans, Coins, 197]. Bexley. — Neolithic hatchets, chipped and ground at the edges [Evans, Stone Imp. 103 ; Arch. Journ. xlviii. 436]. Neolithic flint knife [Evans, Stone Imp. 357]. Eight plain gold penannular bracelets of the late Bronze Age period found together in 1906 in a gravel pit. They are of two sizes, viz, four are broad and hollowed, and four are narrower and flatter on the inside face ; all have the terminals thickened into a semicircle. Total weight, 24 ozs. 8 dwt. 6 gr. They have been purchased as treasure-trove for the British Museum [information kindly supplied by Mr. Reginald Smith, F.S.A.] Birchington. — British coin of tin, uninscribed gold coin, and one Eppillus [Evans, Coins, SI, 125, 194, 484]. Blean. — Bronze palstave found by Mr. John Brent [Evans, Bronze Imp. 88]. > Archaologia Cantiana, xiii. 16.

  • Where references are not given the discovery has been made by the writer, or the information

has been communicated to him privately. 334