A salt working site at Scotney Court Gravel Pit, Lydd

At Easter 1990 records were made of this salt-working site in the side of the gravel pit at Scotney Court, south-west of Lydd. In December 1990 Brett Gravel kindly stripped the surface off part of it, which made possible three weeks excavation by members of the Field Archaeology Unit assisted by a handful of local volunteers. The site was or i gi na lly recognised by Mark Gardiner, and both periods of work were funded by the Trust.

The archaeological deposits consisted of a thick but discontinuous layer of reddish bri quetage ( typical salt-making debris, best described as burnt clay) which contained abundant quantities of pottery. The work in December revealed that these archaeological deposits lay on top of a sticky yellow clay as well as filling in a number of pits, ditches and post-holes which had previously been cut into that clay.

The western trench, illustrated here, provided an interesting and complex sequence of both archaeological and natural sedimentary deposits. The features cut into the yellow clay (108) had been inundated by a tongue of shingle (111) which was laid down during an episode of flooding of the site. Activity must have been held up but was subsequently resumed, and more features were cut through the shingle layer and briquetage (112) was deposited on top of it. Later still, two ditches (117) were cut through that briquetage, and this in turn was flooded and sea led by thick layers of clay (105).

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The finds of pottery from many of the pits, including the latest ditches, suggest a Late Iron Age/Roman date for the whole site. A series of soil samples yielded carbonised grain, seeds and fish bones which, when analysed, will provide economic and dietary information.

Although no hearths were found ( and it was suspected that the centre of the salt-making activity had been slightly to the east in an area already removed by gravel-working), information from this excavation will assist the understanding of the nature of early salt-working on the Marsh, and will help to place episodes of sedimentation in a chronological framework.

The Field Archaeology Unit is indebted to Mr. Richard Hambly and Brett Gravel Ltd for the use of machinery and for their kind co-operation throughout.

Luke Barber
Field Archaeology Unit, University College London