few pieces of very fine glass, a glass pin, some small
bits of iron with traces of gold on them, and some fragments of small
bronze ornaments. In the largest barrow, a pavement of large coarse red
tiles bordered with flint stones slanted down from the exterior towards
the centre. The pottery suggests a Roman date for the barrow, or secondary
burial in a mound of earlier date. [Arch. Cant. xv, 311 ; V.C.H.
Kent, i, 331 ; Proc. Soc. Antiq. 2nd series, ix, 163. For
similar barrows, see p. 77, and R. Comm. on Hist. Mons. Essex, i,
pp. xxiv, 4.] One and a quarter miles north-east of this, on the opposite
of the Roman road, in excavations for a lake in Bourne Park in 1846, a
broken Samian saucer was found with necks of jars, two spurs, a curious
key, and a dagger with a blade 6½ in. long and black wood handle inlaid
with gold, apparently medieval. Later distinctly Roman interments occurred
at the same depth, but a little distance away, including a large urn 12 to
14 in. in height containing ashes, several smaller vessels, and a Samian
stamped DOV . . . CCVS (DOECCUS).
Within a few yards were a light green glass bottle with 2 handles, and
fragments of another, a red-brown Castor-ware flagon ornamented with white
scroll pattern, and an earthen urn with white pattern on a dark ground.
Near by, a third deposit at the same depth (10 to 13 ft.) included three
skeletons with long nails near the shoulders, hands and feet, one nail
being driven right through the shoulder. Several coins of all ages were
found, including medieval, and a few Roman, which were illegible, but one
was distinguished as a Carausius. The two latter interments were thought
to be the contents of a barrow, since moved. [Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc.
iii (1848), 47, and Proc. Soc. Ant. 2nd series, II (1850), 79,
80, 94.] Two Saxon graves had been opened in 1844 in Bourne Park. [Dunkin,
Canterbury Meeting of British Arch. Assoc. 1844, p.97.]
BLACKHEATH.—Harris mentions three tumuli to the south and
four to the north of the road between the east corner of Greenwich Park
and its junction with the road from Lee, from which urns and bones were
dug out. Another authority records that many urns were found on Blackheath
in 1710; one, with a girth of 6¼ ft., was inscribed MARCVS
AVRELIVS in rudely scratched letters near the rim, while another,
of curious cylindrical shape and 18 in. long, contained six or seven
coins, including two of Claudius and Gallienus, but from the account it is
not clear whether these did not come from Newington, near Sittingbourne, q.v.
These two accounts may possibly refer to the same discovery, or the
latter may be concerned with relics from one of the barrows opened in
Greenwich Park. [Harris, Hist. Kent, 138; R. Gale’s Essay in
Hearne’s Leland’s Itinerary (1711), vi, 103; hence A. D.
Webster, Hist. Greenwich Park (1902), 68; Corpus. Inscr. Lat. vii,
1331.] Webster Dp. cit. p. 67] also mentions remains in Westcombe Park. In
1802, three urns, including one of Upchurch ware, the largest of which
contained burnt bones, were found together with a vase, a flagon, and a
saucer, 2 ft. below the surface in the Earl of Dartmouth’s garden
at the south-west corner of Blackheath. [MS. Minutes Soc. Antiq. 3 Feb.
1803, xxix, 391; Arch. xv, 392, plate xxxix; hence Hasted, Hist.
Kent, i, 375, and Arch. xviii, 330; British Mus.] The
three brooches found here are not Roman. [MS. Minutes Soc. Antiq. 2 Feb.
1725—6, i, 183; hence Hasted, Hist. Kent, i, 27,1 and
Gough, Camden Britannia (1806), i, 326.] A Roman camp marked on the
6-inch O.S. map, Sheet No. I, S.E., is probably not of that period. For
London Road, see p. 138.
BOLEY HILL (ROCHESTER).—See p. 87.
BORDEN.—Sittingbourne, p. 98 (9). Villa at Sutton Baron, p.
105. Roman tiles have been noticed in the church. [Hasted, Hist. Kent, vi,
69.] See also TUNSTALL.
BOROUGH GREEN.—In a field west of Borough Green and south
of the road to Ightham, cinerary urns were found about 1839, but buried
again elsewhere. [Arch. Cant. ii, 7, 8; hence Bennett, Ightham (1907),
55.] A quarter of a mile away, in the clay and sand pit just north
of Borough Green Station, groups of pottery were frequently dug up. More
especially in Oct. 1899, the deposits occurred in lines about 6 ft. apart,
and about 2 ft. from the surface. They included three cinerary urns, 12
in. high, containing calcined bones, and a fourth much broken, 5 Samian
dishes (one of form 35 or 36), a Samian cup, 2 Upchurch vases, 6 and 4 in.
high, ornamented with the dot pattern, 2 other fragments, parts of 2 red
jugs with handles, and parts of much earlier and much ruder cinerary urns
with calcined bones. [Arch. Cant. xxiv, proc. p. lviii. In
Rochester Museum.] The Kent Archaeologica1 Society has two lamps from
graves at Borough Green; one is stamped FORTIS
on the bottom, the other, stamped PRO BVS,
bearing the head of Jupiter on the discus. The potter FORTIS
had a factory, possibly at Mutina in Northern Italy, before A.D. 79, but
his stamp seems to have been freely adopted by other potters in the
northern provinces at a later date. In Maidstone Museum are two further
lamps from Borough Green; the first has a rounded nozzle flanked on either
side by a volute, and the discus bearing figures of Castor and Pollux (1st
century A.D.); the other has a raised rim round the discus, a longitudinal
groove on the nozzle, and is stamped COMVNI
(probably about A.D. 70—120).
1 References to Hasted are to the
second 8vo edition of 1797.
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