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Victoria County History of Kent Vol. 3  1932 - Romano-British Kent - Topographical Index1 - Page 144

NOTE.—Under this heading are grouped together a variety of miscellaneous discoveries, some of which deserve separate treatment, more particularly the funeral monuments and cemeteries. They are remarkable both for their number and their character; further investigation would undoubtedly produce interesting results. Here we may mention monuments, sometimes of architectural pretensions, and often in walled enclosures at Lockham, Sutton Valence, Plaxtol, Barming, :Springhead, Sittingbourne, and Keston; tumuli at Bishopsbourne and Plaxtol, and possibly at Aldington, Blackheath, Snodland, and Chartham; a baked tile tomb at Allington. Lead coffins are very numerous—Chatham, Crayford, Frindsbury, Plumstead, Westbere, in addition to those in the towns and settlements. Coin-hoards occur, but are not perhaps so numerous as, for instance, in Hants or Somerset. On the other hand, a detailed enquiry would probably show that the earliest coins (including British and Gallic coins) are commoner in Kent than elsewhere, as are the early types of brooches,
   ALDINGTON.—A lead canister containing the burnt bones of a child was found in the garden of ‘Kitcat’ in 1914, and presented by Mrs. Elsie Hueffer to the British Museum in 1929, together with two or three potsherds found close by. ‘The Mount’ is sometimes claimed as a Roman barrow; it does not seem to have been excavated. Aldington Knoll may have been a beacon; it is probably artificial.
   ALLINGTON.—Foundations of buildings, see p.103. In 1848 an unusual type of tomb was found in a stone quarry, 300 yds. south-west of Allington Castle, on the west bank of the Medway, and 220 yds. from the river. It lay in a bed of red clay between two veins of ragstone, 5 ft. from the surface, and measured 4½ ft. by 3 ft., with a depth of 12 to 18 in. Probably the tomb was constructed in this way: a hole was dug in the clay, and the bottom and sides were worked to a condition of relative smoothness, the walls then being consolidated by baking with a fire lit inside. When it was hard, the body (of a male about 70) was placed inside, with head bent on chest and knees raised a little, and the tomb was then closed by a dome made of wattle and daub, and baked from the outside. Above the tomb was a layer of stones and earth; no other remains were found. The skeleton was said to be of ‘the Celtic type,’ and the tomb very probably belongs to the Early Iron Age immediately preceding the Roman period, as do several urns and brooches from here. A fragment of the tomb material is in Maidstone Museum. [Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc.  iv (1849), 65; hence Arch. Cant. xi, 116, cf. Shorne.] A short distance east of the (former) chapel of St. Lawrence de Longsole and before 1862 were found a square bottle of pale green glass with reeded handle, two Samian dishes (shapes 18/31 and 31) and a cup (form 33) stamped COMUS (?FEC), together with six vessels of coarse pottery. In 1923 a piece of a Samian bowl (form 37), probably Antonine, was found close to the site of the chapel. [Maidstone Museum. inf. from O.S. Name Book, Southampton, and Mr N.C. Cook.]  See also Boxley. A small bulbous beaker (date 250—300 A.D.) found in 1907 near Allington Castle between the railway and the river contained 22 ‘small brass’ coins of Tetricus, several of which are barbarous (?Gaulish) copies. [Inf. from Mr. H. J. Elgar,
Maidstone Mus.] From here also came a small one-handled flagon of black ware (50—100
a large two-handled, pear-shaped lagena, four vases, three bronze brooches and a key. [Maidstone Mus. Information from Mr. Elgar].
    APPLED0RE.—Silver coin of Sabina found 1905. [Inf. from Mr. H. J. Elgar.]
   ASH (near Sandwich).—An amphora (27 in. high and 22 in. diameter at the bulge) containing burnt bones was found with other pottery, including a large red saucer, about 1886, close to the Sandwich road, about a mile from the well-known Saxon cemetery. [Proc. Soc. Antiq. (series i), iii, 285.] A Samian saucer and other pottery fragments, from Ash Workhouse, are in the Mayer Collection in Liverpool Free Public Museum. Among the Roman relics from the Saxon cemetery at Ash were coins of Tiberius, Augustus and Faustina, the last-named made into weights. - [Faussett, Inventorium Sepulchrale (1856), p.18 et seq. Cf. Ozingell.] Possibly the Roman coins and some "magnificent Roman pottery" exhibited to the Kent Archaeological Society in 1864 came from this cemetery. - [Arch. Cant. vi, proc. p. lxiii.] A stone coffin found at Goshall in 1710 was thought by Harris, the Kentish historian, to be Roman. Harris, [Hist. Kent (1719), 335.]
  
1 Compiled by Mr. R. F. Jessup and Miss M. V. Taylor who thank Mr. Hubert J. Elgar and Mr. N. C. Cook for valuable assistance in the preparation of this Index. But see above. p. 1. note 1

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