Caesar’s Camp, a Late Iron Age enclosure and medieval pits at the Holwood Estate, Keston
With contributions by Leo Webley and Emma Beadsmoore
The Cambridge Archaeological Unit (CAU) carried out a series of trenched investigations at the Holwood Estate between 1999 and 2004. Trenching surveys around the Iron Age hillfort of Caesar’s Camp relocated the now- levelled southwestern ramparts and ditch. Topographic surveys carried out by RCHME in 1997 and 2000, supplemented with recent LIDAR data allow almost the entire circuit of the hillfort to be completed, with two and three parallel banks revealed encircling the site. An entrance on the southeastern escarpment from the valley below complements the gateway excavated on the northwestern ramparts in the 1950s by Nancy Piercy-Fox. The CAU also re- investigated a Late Iron Age enclosure, first identified in rescue excavations in 1979 during construction on the Redwood building. The CAU identified three Iron Age ditches, the largest of which related to the enclosure and dated to the Late Iron Age. Within the enclosure were also twelve small pits, probably related to a fourteenth-century tile kiln found to the southeast in 1972 by the Bromley and West Kent Archaeological Group.
This article describes investigations at the Holwood Estate, Keston, carried out by the Cambridge Archaeological Unit (CAU) between 1999 and 2004. It focusses on two monuments within the Park: the great Iron Age hillfort of Caesar’s Camp and a nearby Late Iron Age rectangular enclosure. This project encountered major set- backs when work was undertaken twenty years ago, including the initial developer going into liquidation, which meant no funds were available for the planned program of post-excavation analysis and publication. The current article is based on the project archives: interim reports and site plans as well as the initial specialists’ assessments for the Iron Age enclosure done in 2004. There are, however, several unavoidable gaps: there is no specialist analysis of the finds assemblages excavated in 1999 and 2000; none of the environmental or phosphate samples were processed; there are no radiocarbon dates. Also, the geophysical survey and aerial photography assessment done at the time have not been included here: technological advances and the volume of aerial photographs now available have entirely superseded the work done at the time. The digitized site reports (Dickens 1999, 2002; Knight 1999, 2000; Knight and Dickens 2004) have all been uploaded to the University of Cambridge’s digital repository, where they can be accessed at no charge.
Bedrock – Harwich Formation: Sand and gravel Bedrock – Lambeth Group and Thanet Formation Bedrock – White Chalk Subgroup [pg150]
Superficial – Head metres Contains British Geological Survey materials © UKRI 2023 [pg245]
The site
The Holwood Estate lies on a promontory in the North Downs (Fig. 1 and Fig. 2). To the south rise the chalk hills of the North Downs. To the north, overlying the chalk, are thick layers of dense sand, silt and gravel formed by the Thanet Formation and Lambeth Group, capped by the Harwich Formation. Dry valleys cut north-south through the chalk of the Downs, but on encountering the gravels beds at Keston they are diverted east toward Farnborough and northwest toward Hayes, leaving a natural causeway between them. This causeway links the high ground at Holwood with the Downs to the south. The soils are site are very acid sandy and loamy, and rated as ‘very low’ fertility (CSAI: Soilscapes 2023), although more fertile soils are found in the valley floor and on the chalk down to the south. Today, they support dry heathland and forestry, and in the past might have been suitable chiefly for dry grazing: they are unlikely to have ever been worth cropping.
[fg]png|Fig. 1 Site location and nearby monuments.|Image[/fg]
[fg]png|Fig. 2 Geology, topography and 5m contours.|Image[/fg]
The highest point of the promontory stands at 165m above OD (Fig. 2). The late Iron Age rectangular enclosure is only slightly lower at c.160–161m above OD, with a wide view to the south towards the Thames valley and London. The hillfort lies somewhat lower, on sloping ground, between 153 and 135m OD. The hillfort’s southwestern ramparts exploit the escarpment of the hill, while its western defences utilize a series of natural gullies, which serve to increase the height of the walls. O’Neil (1933) also suggests the gullies would have been permanently waterlogged in the Iron Age, constraining the movement of people and animals approaching the site. There is a natural spring, ‘Caesar’s Well’, in the gully just outside the north- west entrance to the hillfort (GLHER 144203), and numerous other ponds and pools dot the promontory. Running northwards from the centre of the hillfort is another minor gully, which would have supplied the interior of the hillfort with water.
Parts of the Iron Age hillfort’s ramparts have been flattened. The southern earthworks had been partly levelled before 1790, presumably during construction of the original Holwood House and its gardens. The northern ramparts were flattened shortly after, on the orders of William Pitt the Younger, then owner of the Holwood Estate. Construction of the Redwood Centre to the southwest of the hillfort in 1979 led to considerable ground disturbance, although it did also reveal the Iron Age enclosure (Philp et al. 2020). A different form damage emerged from the 1950s onwards, when the Estate was widely planted with conifers, while self- seeded sycamores and rhododendrons compounding root damage to the ramparts and interior of the hillfort. This culminated in the Great Storm of October 1987, when some 2000 trees were uprooted and lost in the area.
Previous investigations
Caesar’s Camp Iron Age hillfort is a scheduled monument (1002023). It covers c.17 hectares and is one of the finest surviving examples of a multivallate hillfort in southeastern England. Today, only the western ramparts remain upstanding, with three eastern banks separated by two ditches, pierced by the original northwestern entrance. Caesar’s Camp attracted early attention from antiquarians. An early and rather idiosyncratic survey of the hillfort was reproduced by Hasted (1797, opp. p. 38). By contrast, the survey conducted by Milne and engraved for the Society of Antiquaries in 1790 can be considered quite accurate by modern standards (Fig. 3; [pg246]Vestuta Monumenta vol. 4. plate 10). Crucially, Milne’s survey depicts the northern ramparts before they were flattened on Pitt’s orders. Immediately to the west of the [pg247]hillfort is a ditch and bank on Keston Common (Scheduled Monument 1002022). It measures c. 19m wide and c.2m deep and was dug between two of the natural coombs or valleys on the plateau. It remains unexcavated but was originally interpreted as an Iron Age promontory hillfort (O’Neil 1933). It may however have simply been intended to control movement around the hillfort, along with the deep Shire Ditch excavated on the causeway c.750m to the south (Piercy-Fox 1954).
[fg]jpg|Fig. 3 Milne’s plan of Caesar’s Camp printed in Vestuta Monumenta, Volume 4, Plate 10, dated 1790. (Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library).|Image[/fg]
Westerham Road
Modern investigation of Caesar’s Camp began with Nancy Piercy Fox (1969), who excavated the upstanding ramparts and gateway in 1956–59 (Fig. 4). Her [pg248]goals were to understand the date, method of construction and entranceways into the site. She identified three phases of rampart construction and proved the northwest entrance was original. She also observed excavation of a pipeline, which demonstrated the current gap in the ramparts where the modern driveway enters is not original and that roadway passes over the line of the ditch (Bromley Museum, acc. no. 73.35.35).
[fg]png|Fig. 4 Trench locations around the hillfort. Contains OS data © Crown copyright 2023|Image[/fg]
Between 1972 and 1990, the Bromley and West Kent Archaeological Group (BWKAG) and the Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit (KARU) conducted numerous investigations in the Holwood Estate. In 1972, the group excavated a medieval tile kiln to the southeast of the present Redwood Centre (Philp 1972, 1979). In 1979, during construction of the Redwood Centre, KARU conducted a rescue excavation which uncovered the corner of an Iron Age enclosure. The team were able to excavate one slot through the ditch and plot the outline of the ditch. Unfortunately, beyond single-paragraph reports (Grant 1979: 157; 1980: 45; 1981:
143; Richardson 1981: 46), the findings were not published until 2020 long after the CAU’s investigations (Philp et al. 2020). The limited information described the outline of rectangular enclosure measuring c.100m long and 55–70m wide, with a potential entrance on the eastern end. Details of the enclosure ditch varied with each report, varying between 4 and 5 metres wide and 2 and 3 metres deep. The only plan of the excavations available at the time was submitted by KARU to a public inquiry into a planning application in March 2001, ‘a hand drawn sketch recalled from memory over 20 years after the event’ (Philp in evidence; Tamplin 2001: para 5.32). Even more regrettably, the hand-drawn plan published in 2020 lacks grid references and is clearly inaccurate, with identifiable features 5–15m from their true position. The site plan plots 8 trial trenches west of the Redwood Centre, but the article says 35 were excavated: the location of the remainder is unknown. The 2020 article reports a small pottery assemblage tentatively dated AD 5–60, although with no certain Romanized fabrics. Despite the lack of Roman material, the enclosure was interpreted as a Roman fortlet or signal station.
Other work and findings which BWKAG and KARU reported from Holwood but do not appear to have been published or entered into the Greater London Historic Environment record include: work around a pipeline at an unknown location at Holwood in 1978, including observation of the hillfort’s inner ditch and part of the rampart (Grant 1979) extensive surveys in uprooted trees following the 1987 hurricane, revealing further Iron Age material, and subsequent trial trenching excavations (Grant 1989) ‘archaeological work’ in 1990 revealing Iron Age and Roman remains (Johnston 1990).
Hillfort investigations
Topographic Survey In 1997 and 2000, the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME) carried out two topographic surveys in Holwood Estate (RCHME 1997 [pg249]in Dickens 1999: Appendix 4; Barker 2000). The first covered the southeastern ramparts on the escarpment; the second covered the gardens around Holwood House and the woodland to the west. Together, these surveys covered 23 hectares, although dense undergrowth limited the team’s ability to effectively survey the entire site. The survey identified several low banks in the formal gardens of Holwood House corresponding to the position of the hillfort’s ramparts shown in Milne’s 1790 plan, along with scarps and banks on the steep ground on the hillfort’s south-eastern edge.
Other findings, unrelated to the hillfort, included:
scarps and spreads of earth associated with the construction of Redwood House in the 1970s landscaping associated with the gardens south of Holwood House, along with the nearby pond, as well as a hollow way or driveway from the south
a small farm or settlement inside the hillfort’s southern circuit, with a house platform, ditched enclosures and well visible. These pre-date the 18th century landscaping and may potentially be medieval in date.
The Hillfort Trenches
In 1999, the CAU excavated four trenches (Tr11–14) in the formal gardens of Holwood House and in a carpark just outside the Scheduled Monument (Fig. 4) to assess the extent of the hillfort’s southwestern extent and check for activity associated with the monument. The location of the trenches was based on Milne’s map, as well as the RCHME topographic survey.
Trenches 12 and 13, and the western end of Trench 11 all contained a deep dump of dark modern soil, directly overlying undisturbed natural geology. No archaeological features were identified in these trenches. The dump of soil was overlain by a humic layer and appeared to be associated with the levelling of this part of the hillfort’s defences. The hillfort’s outer ditch (F.1) was identified in the eastern end of Trench 11. Trench 14 was subsequently excavated perpendicular to the ditch to provide a complete profile (Fig. 5). The excavated section measured 5.80m across and 1.84m deep. Its profile was the same as the outer ditch reproduced by Piercy-Fox (1969), comprising of a broad V-shaped ditch cut with a central ‘ankle-breaker’ or narrow V-shaped slot at its base. Its fills were symmetrical and demonstrated repeated periods of inactivity or standstill (silting episodes) and active periods of slumping (edge erosion). The ditch profile would originally have been much sharper than the surviving eroded sides, as the ‘V’ at the base of the profile indicates.
[fg]png|Fig. 5 Outer ditch of the hillfort in Trenches 11 and 14.|Image[/fg]
A further two trenches (Trenches A and B) were subsequently excavated to the east in 2000 in the gardens of Holwood House (Fig. 4). The goal was to identify the exact location of the southern defences in this part of the site.
Trench A revealed the outer hillfort ditch (F.1), along with the inner scarp of the rampart at the northern edge of the trench (F.4) along with the flattened remains of the outer counterscarp bank to the south (F.3) (Fig. 6). Both the rampart and counterscarp bank had been truncated by layer [071], which contained chalk lumps and hand-made brick fragments, consistent with the creation of the gardens around Holwood House. The hillfort ditch, F.1, measured 5.10 across at the top, and 4m of [pg250]its length was exposed in plan. Regrettably, rising groundwater meant excavation of the ditch had to be abandoned at a depth of only 0.3m, but this was sufficient to show its edges sloped down at c. 45°. The ditch was filled with a yellowish- brown clay with abundant pebbles. This fill extended up over the lower edges of the flanking earthworks. The fact this part of the hillfort ditch was entirely filled and overlay the bank — in contrast to its preservation between the upstanding ramparts to the west — indicates it had been filled deliberately: presumably during the initial creation of Holwood House gardens. The rampart, F.4, was layered, [pg251]comprising a layer of greyish-brown clay with pebbles, overlain by a compacted bedded layer of pebbled within a matrix of brown silty clay. The rampart survived to a height of 0.4m. The counterscarp bank, F.3, was less structured, consisting of a broad dump of orange-brown silty clay with occasional pockets of pebbles. Its southern tail was distinguished by a turf-like capping (orangey-brown loamy clay), which survived beneath the truncation layer. Charcoal flecks were observed throughout the bank, indicating the material had been redeposited.
[fg]png|Fig. 6 The flattened rampart and ditch in Trench A.|Image[/fg]
Trench B to the southwest produced no evidence for the counterscarp bank seen in Trench A, or any other evidence for the hillfort, although the modern truncation horizon was again observed. The absence of the counterscarp bank helped confirm its width: 12.5m wide in Trench A, which is very close to the 12.3m width of the upstanding earthworks on the western side of the hillfort.
Locating the true line of the southern perimeter of the hillfort also shed light of some of the earthworks located immediately north on the gardens of Holwood House identified in the RCHME topographic survey. What had originally appeared to be modern or garden-related terracing emerged instead as relic earthworks of the hillfort. This also explains why Milne’s map does not depict an outer bank and ditch on this part of the circuit: not because they never existed, but because at the time his plan was made the features were already flattened and filled in and subsequently no longer visible.
The woodland trenches
At the same time as the CAU was investigating the hillfort in 1999, the field team excavated a further ten trenches (Tr. 1–10) in clearances in the woodland to the west and south, to assess activity in the wider area. These trenches produced very much less material.
Trench 7 contained an Iron Age ditch, F.2, measuring 1m wide and 0.22m deep, with a U-shaped profile. It contained two fills: the upper containing over a kilogram of burnt flint (1,148g) while the lower produced a small amount of abraded Iron Age pottery (23 sherds, 68g). Trench 8, located south of the Redwood building and c.20m south of the medieval tile kiln, produced six pieces of vitrified tile in topsoil, but was otherwise devoid of archaeological features. All the remaining trenches produced no pre-modern material. Trenches 1–5 proved to be very shallow with natural geology exposed almost as soon as the turf was removed. Trenches 6 and 10 produced dumps of building debris over a truncated natural geology, doubtless related to the construction of the Redwood building nearby. Trench 7, in addition [pg252]to its Iron Age ditch, also contained redeposited material including plastic and a thick deposit of redeposited ‘brick earth’. Trench 11 contained a layer of buried soil which produced four potentially Neolithic flints. Trench 9 produced three late postholes, one of which contained half a modern housebrick as a postpad.
Lidar
Since the RCHME topographic survey twenty years ago, high resolution lidar of the area has become available. This provides valuable new information about the hillfort. Processing of the data reveals over six hundred metres of the hillfort’s ramparts, previously thought to have been destroyed (Fig. 7). On the northeastern [pg253]boundary, flattened between 1790 and 1800, parallel banks can still be traced for 380 metres, although the ditch between has been entirely filled in. Their position matches the ramparts drawn by Milne. The surviving banks are subtle, measuring barely half a metre high. On the steep ground forming the eastern edge of the hillfort, at least two and probably three banks and counterscarps are visible under the wood. There is a clear break through all of the banks at TQ 4251 6376, presumably marking an entranceway from the valley to the east. Beyond them, on the low ground, are two banks which may form a ‘hornwork’ framing the entrance: the southern bank has a ditch on its inner side; the northerly is more ambiguous and could simply be a medieval field boundary. Finally, the scarp on the southeastern lip of the valley, within a hundred metres of Holwood House, appears to have been enhanced with a bank.
[fg]png|Fig. 7 LiDAR data under heavy vertical exaggeration, lit from the south-west, showing banks previously thought flattened in the 18th Century. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2023|Image[/fg]
Finds
Analysis of the pottery and flint recovered in 1999 and 2000 was not carried out beyond spot dating. The hillfort’s outer ditch, F.1, produced a single Iron Age sherd (3g), two worked flints (85g), and one fragment of burnt flint (48g). The ditch F.2 in Trench 7, close to the Redwood building, produced 23 sherds of abraded Iron Age pottery (67g), with one more presumably residual piece (6g) in the overlying redeposited brickearth. At total of 39 pieces of burnt flint (1,148g) were also recovered from the ditch. One modern pottery sherd (1g) was recovered from Trench 9. The buried soil in Trench 11 produced three worked flints (262g), possibly Neolithic, and 1 piece (77g) of burnt flint.
Redwood House: the late iron age enclosure and medieval pits
The CAU returned to the Holwood Estate in 2003–04 for two phases of fieldwork associated with the replacement of the Redwood building located to the south of the hillfort. The original building had been built in 1979–80, and construction had involved cutting deep into the ground surface. The groundworks had revealed the corner of a rectangular enclosure. The Bromley and West Kent Archaeological Group conducted rescue excavations while construction was underway, exposing one section of the ditch and plotting the route of the ditches. They described the find as the corner of a rectangular Iron Age enclosure. Regrettably, as noted above, their excavations were unpublished at the time of the CAU’s work, and the only plan available had been drawn from memory two decades later, so the exact location, nature and extent of the enclosure was unknown. The purpose of the CAU’s work was to relate the enclosure’s ditches, identify any associated activity, and obtain dating evidence.
The initial phase of the CAU’s investigation in 2003 involved cleaning the existing batter around the complete circuit of the Redwood building before its demolition. The subsequent fieldwork in 2004 focused on a 5m swathe around the top of the existing batter on the western side of the building (Fig. 8). The excavations uncovered three large Iron Age ditches and twelve medieval pits (Fig. 9). The field team noted that all the features lay beneath a layer of redeposited topsoil and concrete — presumably related to the original construction of Redwood. The concrete layer lay directly over one of the archaeological features, suggesting that the ground level had been truncated during construction. The extent of truncation is unknown.
[fg]png|Fig. 9 Plan of the ditches and pits around the Redwood building. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2023|Image[/fg]
[fg]png|Fig. 8 LiDAR data of the rectangular enclosure under heavy vertical exaggeration, lit from the north-east (KARU ditches after Philp et al. 2020, fig 3).[/fg]
Iron Age Ditches Three Iron Age ditches were identified in the batter (F.17, F.18 and F.19; Fig. 9 and Fig. 10). The northern-most of the three, F17, had a broad, V-shaped profile with a rounded base, measuring 3.2m wide and 0.83m deep. Its fill comprised four broadly horizontal deposits. The earliest was a very thin, light grey-to-white, very fine silty sand with occasional thin lenses of grey silty clay and rare flecks of charcoal. The [pg255]second much thicker fill consisted of abundant rounded pebbles with a matrix of light brown sandy silt. The deposit immediately above comprised a light brown sandy loam that was comparatively pebble-free and had the appearance of a slow- forming deposit indicative of a period of ‘standstill’ in the history of the ditch. The top or capping fill of F.17 was very compact and made up almost entirely of rounded pebbles held together with a thin light brown sandy silt. The only artefact recovered from F.17 was a single flake of iron from the second layer.
[fg]png|Fig. 10 Sections of the ditches west of the Redwood building.|Image[/fg]
The southern-most ditch, F.18, was the smallest and apparently least complicated of the three. Its profile was consistently V-shaped with a blunted base. It measured 1.10m wide and 0.36m deep. Its single infill consisted of extremely compact and dense rounded pebbles in a mid-brown, grey fine sandy silt matrix — almost identical to the second fill in F.17, suggesting the two were contemporary. A single sherd of Late Iron Age pottery was recovered from it.
The third ditch, F.19, was on an altogether grander scale (Fig. 8 and Fig. 11). The main profile was observed in the batter around the outside of the Redwood building, but a small part of its base was also found in the central ‘island’ in the centre of the Redwood’s circular footprint. Including this location, the ditch extended over at least 30m and was oriented west–northwest to east–southeast. The portion of F.19 in the batter was V-shaped in profile with splayed upper edges measuring up to 5.40m wide and 1.92m deep. The heavily truncated ‘island’ portion measured only 0.58m wide and 0.28m deep. The base of the ditch varied between rounded to narrow with a flattened base. Both faces of the V-shaped profile were weathered and etched by narrow and irregular erosion channels. The splaying of the upper profile was most pronounced along the northern edge.
[fg]png|Fig. 11 Ditch F.19 west of the Redwood building after excavation in 2004.|Image[/fg]
[pg258]Ditch F.19 had eight fills showing an asymmetrical infilling sequence. The fills on southern side, [1020], [1022], and [1024], were dark and charcoal-rich, and included pottery, burnt clay, burnt pebbles and ash. By contrast, the interleaving layers on the northern side, [1021], [1014], and [1023], were light ‘clean’ fills. The distribution of artefacts within the opposing ditch fills displayed a similar asymmetry with 52 sherds of pottery (568g = 95%) coming from the dark southern deposits and 4 sherds (27g) from the clean northern. In the case of burnt clay the imbalance was the opposite with 29 pieces (686g = 89%) being derived from the clean northern deposits but only 4 (86g) from the dark southern. Besides pottery and burnt clay, other artefacts present within the ditch fills included three worked flints, a single hammerstone, and four pieces of burnt stone — mostly from the basal and dark southern deposits. The finds are described in more detail below. The similarity of the basal fills in F.17 and F.18 suggests they were contemporary. Their lack of finds and ‘clean’ fills compared with F.19 suggests they were not contemporary with the large ditch.
Two further sources of information which emerged long after the CAU’s 2003– 04 fieldwork shed further light in the ditches. First, recent lidar data (DEFRA 2021) shows a ditch and outer bank, forming the northern and western ends of a rectangular enclosure to the west of the Redwood building. The surviving earthworks are very slight: barely 20cm in height and measure c.25m across at their widest point. Unfortunately, any direct connection between them and the ditches excavated in the batter are obscured by a deposit of earth some twenty metres wide. The north–south aligned ditch measures c.49m long, while the visible portion of the east–west ditch is c.44m long before being buried beneath spoil from the Redwood building.
The second source of information is a recently published summary of BWKAG’s 1979–80 rescue excavations, along with a plan of eight trenches to the west of the Redwood building, excavated to trace the course of the enclosure (Philp et al. 2020). Regrettably, it is not possible to reconcile the KARU’s hand-drawn plan with either the lidar data or the CAU’s survey results. No grid references are provided, and identifiable features are displaced by c.5–15m and the orientation is off by c.4°. The text describes the enclosure ditches as measuring 24m along its north-western arm and 31m on its south-eastern, but the hand-drawn site plan shows the latter nearly 10 metres longer. Also, the corner of the enclosure recorded by KARU is at least 7m from the portion of F.19 in the central ‘island’ of the Redwood building. Finally, the enclosure is shown at quite a different orientation to the sketch plan drawn from memory around 2000. The locations of the KARU trenches and archaeological features shown in Figure 10 are a best fit of the evidence available.
The scale and fills of the ditch excavated by BWKAG in 1979, along with the type and date of finds, do suggest it is identical to the CAU’s large ditch, F.19. The 1979 ditch is described as variously “5m deep and 3m wide” (Grant 1981: 143), “some 3m deep and more than 4m wide” (Grant 1980: 45) and “about 4m wide, about 2m deep and had a U-shaped profile” (Philp et al. 2020). Philp et al. (2020) also report the ditch had initially silted up with pebbles and loam. This was overlain by loam containing small amounts of domestic rubbish, which was sealed by further layers of loam and peddles. A small assemblage was recovered comprising in total 44 [pg259]worked flints, 82 pottery sherds, and 47 burnt daub fragments (some with wattle impressions). The flint was dated to the late Neolithic and was consistent with flint found by KARU in the wider area. The pottery fabrics were typical of the local Late Iron Age, with no certain Romanised fabrics identified. The assemblage contained at least two cooking vessels, two pedestal urns, a large storage jar. The pottery was tentatively dated to c. AD 5–60.
Whether F.18 represents the southwestern arm of the enclosure reported by BWKAG is unclear: Philp et al. (2020) say the arm appeared to terminate, suggesting an entranceway. Whether the higher and comparatively slight F.18 is a continuation of this enclosure ditch, or a separate arm south of the entrance, or an entirely unrelated ditch, is most uncertain. Despite its size and depth, F.17 does not appear to have been identified by BWKAG during the rescue excavations. The trenches subsequently excavated by KARU to the west can only by located approximately using the published hand-drawn map, and they are difficult to reconcile with the lidar data. Figure 10 is a ‘best fit’ of the CAU’s surveyed results and Philp et al.’s (2020) plan — although the orientation of the ditch within the footprint of the Redwood building must be regarded with considerable caution.
Medieval Pits
The CAU’s 2004 excavation uncovered twelve small sub-circular pits (F.5–F.16) between ditches F. 18 and F.19. They ranged between 0.45 and 0.9m in diameter and were 0.10–0.12m deep. All had similar fills of redeposited brick earth (yellowish brown sandy clay) with occasional fragmented flints and rare charcoal flecks. The uniformity of fills suggests they had all been dug and backfilled around the same time.
A few of the pits contained artefacts: both F.5 and F.13 produced single fragments of medieval roof tiles; F.14 and F.16 produced single residual worked flints. The medieval tile fragments are of the same type as those found in the Holwood medieval tile kiln located 30m to the south (Philp 1973, 1983).
Iron Age Pottery - Leo Webley
Note: this section was prepared in 2004 and has not been updated to incorporate more recent excavations.
Some 54 sherds (590g) of Iron Age pottery were recovered during the 2003 and 2004 excavations. Most of the material came from the four lower fills of the large ditch F.19, contexts [1019]–[1022], with just one sherd (6g) from the single fill of ditch F.18. Although the assemblage is small, it does allow a narrow date range to be applied to the large ditch feature, and it includes one unusual and significant find in the form of an imported Gallo-Belgic vessel.
Fabric Six fabrics were identified: G1 Moderate medium-coarse grog, sparse very fine quartz G2 Rare-sparse medium-coarse grog, moderate fine quartz. Soft brick red fabric.
[pg260]M1 Moderate fine quartz, moderate fine-medium mica Q1 Common very fine-fine quartz S1 Common very coarse voids S2 Common coarse-very coarse voids. Rare-sparse medium-coarse grog
The most frequent fabrics (S1 and S2) are coarse and vesicular with a ‘corky’ appearance. The voids are most likely the result of dissolved-out shell inclusions, though there may also be an element of organic temper. The second of the two vesicular fabrics is distinguished by the presence of grog as an additional inclusion, and by generally smaller voids to give a denser feel. Clays containing fossil shell would have been available locally from the Woolwich Beds.
Most of the remaining sherds are either in grog-tempered (G1 and G2) or sandy (Q1) fabrics. The single sherd from ditch F.8 is in fabric G1. Fabric G2, represented by only a single sherd, is in an unusual very soft brick red fabric that may have been misfired.
The final sherds are from a vessel in a very fine micaceous fabric (M1). This represents an import from central Gaul.
Form, Surface, Treatment and Decoration
All of the vesicular sherds are handmade, and most are from large, thick-walled, undecorated storage or cooking pots. Two rim sherds are present: one simple thickened rim from [1021] and one inturned beaded rim in [1020]. Meanwhile, one sherd from [1020] in a relatively fine version of the S2 fabric is from the base of a pedestal urn, with only a slightly concave underside to the foot (cf. Thompson 1982, types A1 & A2). The grog-tempered sherds are also handmade, including a foot-ring base and two conjoining sherds from a large, burnished vessel, both [1020]/[1022].
The sandy pottery includes a sherd from a handmade burnished jar with an everted rim, a cordon on the shoulder, and irregular vertical burnished lines on the body [1020]/[1022]. Wheel-made material is also present in this fabric group, with two conjoining sherds from a fine jar with an everted beaded rim and two cordons around the neck [1020]/[1022]. A further four sandy sherds could perhaps be wheel-made.
The fine micaceous vessel from [1020] is wheel-made, though due to its high fragmentation the overall form cannot be reconstructed. However, by parallel with other micaceous Gallic vessels found in Britain it is likely to have been a fine jar.[pg261]
Condition
Sherd condition varies, although most are abraded to some degree. No residues or use-wear are apparent. The handmade cordoned jar from [1020]/[1022] shows post-breakage secondary burning.
Affinities and dating
The combination seen here of coarse shell or shell/organic tempered jars with finer grog or sand tempered vessels is typical of west Kent during the Late Iron Age (Thompson 1982; Couldrey 1991). Closer dating is possible, however. It is useful to compare the group with the much larger assemblage recovered from the neighbouring site at Warbank, Keston (Couldrey 1991; 1999), where the Late Iron Age pottery (c. 50 BC–AD 50) was divided into two phases, IIIa and IIIb. The phase IIIa pottery was all hand-made and comprised shelly and sandy fabrics only. Only in phase IIIb did features such as wheel-made wares, grog temper and cordons appear, and it is to this group that the present assemblage can be compared. It can also be noted that the material from Caesar’s Camp (Piercy-Fox 1969, 190-2) is clearly earlier than the present assemblage, the former instead resembling the phase IIIa material from Warbank.
The micaceous Gallo-Belgic vessel cannot be paralleled at Warbank, although a similar example has been found elsewhere in west Kent at Farningham Hill (Couldrey 1984). Such imports to southeast England are dated to c. 25 BC–AD
[fn]50|They are particularly associated with centres of ‘wealth’ or power, such as Skeleton Green and Camulodunum, making this an intriguing find from such a limited excavation.[/fn]
The evidence as a whole thus indicates a date for the Redwood assemblage in the latter stages of the Late Iron Age, i.e. the last quarter of the 1st century BC to the first half of the 1st century AD. The absence of Romanised material indicates that occupation is unlikely to have continued for any significant time after the Conquest.
Flint - Emma Beadsmoore
The majority of the flint recovered from the site is unworked burnt chunks: 105 (1225g) were recovered from the dark, charcoal-rich fills in Ditch F.19, 7 (20g) from the base of ditch F.17 and 12 (185g) from the medieval pit, F.6. The material could have been deliberately or accidentally burnt. The only worked or utilized flint was unburnt and recovered from one of the fills of F.19 [1020] and comprises a hammerstone, an irregular core, two secondary flakes and two chips. The hammerstone was used systematically but is chronologically undiagnostic. The irregular core and one of the secondary flakes are both the comparatively fresh products of an expedient technology, with no traces of systematic core reduction and no concern over the form of the removals. Expedient, unstructured core reduction, with unmodified platforms, uncorrected errors, and generally thick and broad flakes, is associated with Iron Age flint working. The remaining secondary flake is worn, narrower and likely to be residual and earlier, possibly Neolithic worked flint, inadvertently caught up in a later feature.[pg262]
Medieval Tile - Mark Knight
The tile assemblage comprises two pieces (72g) derived from two separate contexts: medieval pits F.5 and F.13. Both fragments come from flat rectangular tiles (11mm thick) of hard grog-tempered clay with abundant sand. The two pieces match a sample tile taken from the nearby medieval tile kiln excavated in 1972 (Philp 1973). The kiln was dated to the 14th century.
Burnt Clay - Mark Knight
The burnt clay assemblage is exclusive to ditch F.19 and comprised 38 fragments weighing 843g.
The assemblage is made up of three fabric types:
Fabric 1: very hard with abundant sand (9 pieces) Fabric 2: moderate hard with frequent linear voids (chaff?) and occasional small angular stone (2 pieces)
Fabric 3: medium with common sand and occasional small pebbles (27 pieces).
A total of 14 fragments (or 59% in weight) can be described as feature pieces (i.e. containing surfaces, perforations, or distinct impressions). The feature fragments include four pieces with broadly flat surfaces, two of which have grass-like impressions. Two other fragments have half-perforations (5–10 mm in diameter) and almost all the pieces have rounded pebble impressions. A single fragment appears to have come from a cylinder-shaped object and therefore is a good candidate for a loom weight.
Conclusion
Taken together, the excavations, Milne’s map, the topographic survey and lidar data allow almost the complete circuit of Caesar’s Camp to be reconstructed (Fig. 12). Trenching in the gardens and carpark of Holwood House located the outer ditch and ramparts and confirmed their dimensions. Their presence in this part of the site also indicates that part of the monument had already been flattened by the time of Milne’s surveys, explaining why only a single bank is recorded on his otherwise accurate plan of the Camp. Lidar reveals upstanding earthworks: two parallel banks on the northeastern part of the circuit and three banks on the eastern margins, and the southeastern scarp (adding to the findings of the RCHME topographic survey). The lidar also shows a clear entrance way on the southeastern corner of the monument—possibly with an external ‘hornwork’—complementing the northeastern gates excavated by Piercy-Fox (1969). Like the upstanding ramparts on the western side of the moment, the banks and ditches on the southeastern side exploit the natural topography of the site: enhancing the one-in-five gradient of the escarpment. The full reconstructed circuit now extends slightly beyond the present boundaries of Scheduled Monument 1002023.
[fg]jpg|Fig. 12 The reconstructed circuit of the Iron Age hillfort. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2023|Image[/fg]
The Iron Age enclosure found by the Redwood building is more problematic. While lidar data shows the ditch and bank of an enclosure extended in west of the [pg263]Redwood building, it has not been possible to fully reconcile the CAU’s excavations with the summary reports produced by the BWKAG and KARU. The scale and finds from KARU’s 1980 trenching over the extant ditch appear to match the CAU’s F.19. The pottery in this feature does not directly compare with that excavated from the hillfort by either Piercy-Fox in the 1950s and 1960s or by CAU in the 1990s but it does resemble the later Phase IIIa assemblage recovered from the nearby linear boundary at Warbank, Keston (Couldrey 1991; 1999), implying a Late Iron Age date for the monument. The absence of any Romanising influence in the pottery, and presence of a potential loom weight suggests the enclosure had a domestic function which did not extend into the Roman period (contra Philp et al. 2020, which suggest a Roman military fortlet). The two ditches, F.17 and F.18, do not appear to have been [pg264]identified by BWKAG in 1979 during rescue excavations at the Redwood Building. The clean fills of these two ditches contrast with the dark, charcoal-rich fills of F.19, and imply a different date for their use. They may be related to another Iron Age ditch found by the CAU 150m to the east in Trench 7. What the function of these ditches might have been is entirely unclear. The poverty of the soils means they are unlikely to have been agricultural field boundaries. They might, however, have had some function controlling access to the hillfort, like the much larger extant bank on Keston Common to the west, and the Shire Ditch to the south.
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