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Victoria County History of Kent Vol. 3  1932 - Romano-British Kent - Industries - Page 128

areas, and in the walled cemeteries at Loose, Borden, and Sutton Valence, the stone being obtained from the Hythe beds of the Lower Greensand. It is likely that quarries were in existence in the neighbourhood of Boughton Monchelsea, Allington and Loose, a district that still supplies ragstone, and the most probable source of the stone used in the shore-forts at Richborough, Reculver, and Lympne, is the Hythe beds in the neighbourhood of Lympne.
Tufa, a calcareous stone deposited by springs from the Hythe beds,, was used both at Richborough and Reculver, as well as at Folkestone and Dover, and probably in some of the Medway villas. The use of chalk blocks in building was not uncommon, but the chief demand for chalk came from the lime burners and plaster makers. A small lime kiln was found outside the north wall of Richborough Castle, and in 1929 a structure 10 ft. in diameter, possibly a lime kiln, was found during excavations in St. Augustine’s, Canterbury. The best example, however, was discovered on the Northfleet villa site in 1910 (P1. XXVIII) ; it was 10 ft. in internal diameter, and constructed of chalk blocks 1 ft. thick, the walls remaining to a depth of about 4 ft. below the ground level. The mouth of the kiln was formed by two short parallel walls of chalk and bricks set in courses, and the floor of the mouth showed a wide, shallow groove, probably formed by the shovel in clearing the kiln. The interior was faced with a lining of brick-earth 2 in. or 3 in. thick, which had become hardened and burnt to red brick colour, and the kiln was found to be full of blocks of chalk and pieces of a red, brick-like material, probably the remains of the oven dome. The floor was built of chalk blocks sloping towards the centre to form a pit 3 ft. in diameter which seems to have been the furnace.
   Another kiln, used perhaps for burning shells instead of chalk, was discovered some years prior to 1874 near Shellness Point, in the extreme east of Sheppey.7
   Kent possesses no important supply of native metallic ores. Attempts have been made at various times, and it may be in Roman times, to smelt the impure sulphide of iron known as pyrites, but the resulting metal contains too high a percentage of sulphur to be of much use. Iron was certainly worked in Sussex in Roman times, but in Kent the iron district is limited to a few parishes near the Sussex border, and even there ancient bloomery sites are uncommon, and not one can be dated with assurance, though Castle Hill, Tonbridge, may perhaps be pre-Roman.Iron slag and carstone (from the Folkestone beds) were found in excavations in the earthworks at Charlton,9  and further discoveries of the same, nature have been made in North Kent at Bostall Heath,10  where much slag was said to cover the country for two miles along the edge of the hill; and in Denge or Penny Pot Woods, east of Petham, a correspondent of George Payne’s saw (some years before 1902) extensive diggings for ironstone, the site of a furnace, and a quantity of slag.11  Nearer to the Sussex border, Mr. O. G. S. Crawford has found iron slag along the course of an ancient road near Benenden; this, however, Mr. Straker is inclined
   Excav. on a Roman site at Northfleet. (Dartford Antiq. Soc. 1913), cf. p. 122, no. 37.
   Coll. Cant. (1893), p. 97.
   Arch. Cant. xli, 195, and information from Mr. Ernest Straker. The Bostall Heath site was thought to be pre-Roman by Mr. Spurrell.
   Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. N.S. xxii, 160.
  10  Arch. Cant. xviii, 308.
  11  Arch. Cant. xxv, p. lxv. It seems unlikely, however, that the smelters would dig for ironstone in chalk country.

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