the third was a dish of coarse black ware. [C. R. Smith, Coll. Ant. iv
(1857), 173, Plate xl, from Bryan Faussett’s . MSS.] About a
hundred interments are said to have been found in two or three acres of
land, on Lower Dane Farm, 300 yds. from the Stone Street road, but no
other record of them remains. [Payne, Coll. Cant. (1893), p. 197.]
See also Garlinge and Industries,p. 128.
PLAXTOL.—Villa at Allen’s Farm, see p. 122. Near this villa was a
shaft, the sides of which were timbered in a similar manner to the shaft
found at Beakesbourne (q.v.); the Plaxtol shaft contained nothing but
black earth, which emitted an unpleasant odour and must probably be
regarded as a well. [Payne, Coll. Cant. (1893), p. 179.] A Roman
tumulus was found in the south-west corner of a field, about 100 yds.
square, north of Thompson’s or Duck’s Farm, and about a mile north of
the villa on Allen’s Farm, but on the western bank of the stream.
Apparently it had previously been levelled; the skeleton of a female was
found in the centre, with its head to the north-east and a large
semicircular stone on the breast, and burial urns and other deposits in
groups in a circle round it, on the edge of the mound. Those to the south
had been better preserved than those on the north side. Among them was a
large urn, 10 in. high and 38 in. circumference, containing a skull, a
biscuit-coloured bottle ornamented with dots and circles, a large Samian
cup stamped ANNIO3F and two saucers stamped
SENTIA.M and OF(?)NEAN
(probably a bogus stamp), black, brown and red pottery containing burnt
bones, some of animals and birds, a glass lachrymatory and other fragments
of fine bottle glass, 2 T-shaped bronze fibulae, and one with a pierced
sheath, 2 bronze rings, 2 bronze locks, hinges, clamps, studs and nails—box-mountings—fragments
of wood, leather and chipped flints. To the west of these were the
foundations of a wall, supposed to have surrounded an enclosure, 100 yds.
square, with the barrow in one corner; a paved road, 4 ft. wide, was said
to have been seen 20 years previously running from the tumulus in a
north-easterly direction, with potsherds on and near it. Patches of
blackened soil containing many potsherds, bones and teeth of animals and 2
iron knives were found apparently in 1893 in a hop-garden on Duck’s Farm
and 200 yds. to the east a skeleton was said to have been found many years
before in a tomb covered with tiles. Perhaps this is the same burial as
that found in 1857, and the blackened soil is part of the funeral fires or
else a rubbish heap. [Arch. Cant. ii, 6, 7, plan and figs.; Gent’s.
Mag. 1857 (2), 201; Payne, Coll. Cant. p. 202.] The Maidstone
Museum has glass, the stamped Samian saucers mentioned above, the
biscuit-coloured
bottle and part of a flagon (Augustan), as well as bronze rings, corner
pieces, lock and handle, and large flat-headed nails.
PLUMSTEAD.—In 1887, a lead coffin containing the skeleton of a young
girl was found, 3 to 4 ft. deep, in a field 30 yds. north of the main road
from Woolwich over Bexley Heath, and west of Wickham Lane, and due north
of East Wickham Church. It lay north and south, and measured 6 ft. long,
15 in. wide, and 12 in. deep; the lead was ⅜ in. to 1 in. thick, and the
whole weighed 3 cwt. The lid was 3½ in. larger and was ornamented round
the edge with the crossed ‘billet and double ring moulding’ usual on
these coffins. Bits of decayed wood were found with it. Three feet away
was a second burial consisting of a man’s skull, a red urn with a
handle, 6½ in. high, and an Upchurch urn, 7 in. high. [Arch. Cant. xvii,
10; Proc. Soc. of Antiq. xi, 308—9; xii, 6; xiii, 245; Antiq. xv
(1887), 165—6; Journ. Brit. Arch. Assoc. xliii, 98. The coffin
is now in the Maidstone Museum.] Only a few yards away was a dene hole, 30
ft. long, leading to a cavity in the chalk, some 30 ft. deep and 18 ft.
broad. At the bottom of it were found seven or eight Upchurch urns, part
of an iron knife, an iron bell with handle and clapper, oyster and snail
shells, bits of burnt sticks, and a broken flanged tile. The remainder of
the pit was filled with potsherds and human and animal bones, among the
latter being some of the polecat, weasel and bos 1ongifrons. The
contents, on the whole, seem to have been those of a rubbish pit of the
Romano-British period, nothing later being found. [Journ. Brit. Arch.
Assoc. xlvii, 88; Proc. Soc. Antiq. xiii, 245; Arch. Cant. xxi,
proc. p. xlviii.]
PRESTON (near FAVERSHAM).—Cemetery, see Faversham, p. 95.
4 or 5
skeletons with nails 7 in. long, and small illegible silver coins were
found at Preston Mill in 1860. [Reliq. xiii, 144.]
PRESTON (near WINGHAM).—In addition to the kiln found here (see p. 131)
a cemetery seems to have extended over a considerable area between
Dearson Farm (and south-west of it) and Preston Court, particularly in
gravel pits. Some of the pottery is of an unusual type. In 1872 several
black urns containing burnt bones were found ‘with several Samian
paterae,’
on Dearson Farm. [Maidstone Museum; Dover Museum, Arch. Cant. xli,
47; Arch. xxxvi, 181; Proc. Soc. Ant. xvi, 247; see also p.
125, n. 63.] See also Wingham.
PRESTON HALL.—See Aylesford.
PUDDING PAN ROCK.—Much plain Samian ware has been dredged from shoals in
the Thames estuary off Whitstable and Herne Bay, particularly from the
Pan Sand 2½ miles north-east of Herne Bay. The discoveries are regarded as
salvage from the wreck of a cargo boat bringing Lezoux pottery from the
coast of Gaul to Britain in about 160 A.D. As long ago as 1778, the
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