Crop Markings at Fawkham, Kent

The investigation of the suggestive crop markings at Fawkham, Kent, first noticed by Mr. Raine and afterwards recorded by the late J. M. Brander (Arch. Cant., XLVII (1935), 241) will now have to be postponed until field work on any scale again becomes possible. In the meantime, the attached oblique air photograph obtained through the
kind offices of Mr. O. G. 8. Crawford is of distinct interest.

The chief feature is a rounded pentagonal-shaped enclosure with a wide entrance road-way or ditch in one side. The entrance is expanded at its outer end and joins at an angle of some 25 degrees a ditch or road-way, one side of which is clear for some distance until it appears to meet another enclosure of lobed form to the west. The entrance to the
first enclosure is interrupted, and other points of interest are the dark patches in the angular ditch, in the enclosure itself, and in the immediate neighbourhood. The white patches in the lower right-hand part of the picture are ploughed-in dene-holes, and another dene-hole exists in a field bank to the north of the site.

Visits to the site at various times over a period have not revealed any clues on the ground except two sherds of sub-Roman pottery from inside the first enclosure, and half
a dozen poor flint flakes from other parts of the surface of the field. Auger tests of the ditch areas produced no conclusive results. The whole area would certainly repay
detailed examination by the spade, but for the present one can but record it and notice its general similarity in plan to the early Iron Age farm called Woodbury, near Salisbury,
which was excavated with such success by the Prehistoric Society. It may perhaps be worth noting that the site is almost at the junction of the parish boundaries of Longfield,
Fawkham, and Horton Kirby.

R. F. Jessup.

[fg]jpg|CROP MARKINGS SEAR SALT FARM, FAW KHAM, Approximate wale: 1'3360. Ordnance Survey: Crown copyright reserved.|Image[/fg]