Aspects of Kentish Local History

Victoria County History of Kent Vol. 3  1932 - Romano-British Kent - Towns - Page 91

destroyed in 192 1—2, at the east end of Winfield Bank (north of the road and east of the railway) 61—may have related to funeral monuments; but, in spite of the poverty of the records, it is tolerably clear also that more than one house, with walls wholly or partly of cemented rubble, flanked the Wailing Street hereabouts.    The burials and ‘small finds’ are, as usual, somewhat better recorded than the structures. Since the beginning of the last century, burials both by incineration and by inhumation have been found in some numbers on both sides of the main road. Some of these burials are specially noteworthy. Thus, in Sole Field lay a stone tomb, 6 ft. 2 in. long, 4 ft. 5 in. wide, and 1 ft. 9 in. deep, covered with two large stones, to each of which an iron handle was fixed with lead. Inside were two plain lead coffins which had apparently at one time been enclosed in wood. Each coffin contained the bones of a small child. With one was a gold chain resembling a fob-chain, originally set with bluish green stones and pearls, with three pendants; also a pair of gold bracelets with terminals in the form of serpents’ heads, and a gold finger-ring with a conical setting. These relics are now in the British Museum, as are others from another burial found near by. At a depth of about 3 ft. a ragstone pavement was uncovered, beneath the middle of which was a large stone box and lid. The interior of the box was cut into
Fig.16  Leather shoe found at Springhead (⅛) (From B. M. Guide to Antiquities of Rom. Brit.)	oval form and contained two large glass urns. Both urns contained burnt bones, and one had been filled up with a ‘ clear liquid ‘ which still remained. Between the urns were two pairs of shoes of purple leather with elaborate openwork pattern enriched with gold thread (fig. 16). Outside and flanking the stone box, also under the pavement, were large urns
containing ashes. Close by, again, was another cremation burial, consisting of two pottery jugs and two Samian dishes (form 31, one stamped by the 2nd-century potter, GRANIANVS) placed in a recess formed by the smooth ends of four stones and covered by a larger one. In one of the dishes were two rib-bones and ashes, whilst immediately under it had been placed a wooden box, represented now only by its bronze mounts (British Museum). The foundations of a buttressed inclosure wall surrounded these burials, which lay thus in a squarish space about 58 ft. by 55½. ft., the whole apparently representing a walled cemetery of a type found elsewhere in Kent (see pp. 98, 144, 158 and P1. XIV, No. 1).    Several other burials have been recorded. Most of them were by cremation, but others, by inhumation, were also probably Roman. The most recent discoveries of the kind are a woman’s skeleton found with 3rd- or 4th-century pottery in Winfield Bank, and a male skeleton, found with an iron key, on the south side of the main road opposite Pepperhill Lane, in 192-2.62    61  R. F. Jessup, Antiq. Journ. viii, 338.    62  For the Springhead burials generally, see Gough MSS. (Bodley), 1802, ii, 921; C. R. Smith, Coll. Antiq, 110, and iii, 54 ; Arch. xiv, 37, 22! ; J. Dunkin, Springhead Memo. p. 144, etc.; Brit. Arch. Assoc. Journ. v, 361 ; R. F. Jessup, Antiq. Journ. viii, 337.

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