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For the rest, considerable
quantities of pottery, dating, it seems, from the middle of
the 1st to the end of the 4th centuries, have been found here,
and the discovery in 1922 of a ‘smother kiln for the
manufacture of " Upchurch" pottery,’ on the
south side of the road between Springhead and Park Corner,
indicates a local origin for some of it. The kiln was rapidly
destroyed, but is said to have been 3 ft. 8 in. in diameter,
clay lined, and to have contained ’typical specimens of
pottery . . . as fresh as though they had recently been
fired.’ 62a
The ‘stamps identified on Samian ware from
Springhead include the 1st-century potters FRONTINVS
(form 18), possibly AMANDVS
(form 27), PASSENVS (form
27), and the 2nd century potters CVRMILLVS
(form 27), CALETVS ( form
33), MAIOR (form 33), CLEMENS
(form 33), GRANIANVS (form
31), MACRINVS (form 33).
The recorded coins include the four British
mentioned above, two Consular, two of Agrippa, one of
Augustus, two of Claudius, three of Nero, fifteen of Vespasian,
and thence normally to ten of Valens, one of Valentinian and
four of Gratian.63 A single hoard is also
recorded from Springhead; it consisted of’ 114 billon
ranging from Gordian III to two of Tetricus II, with a
predominance of Postumus, and may therefore have been
deposited soon after 270 A.D.64
The Roman road in the vicinity of Springhead has
been laid bare more than once, particularly during the
road-making operations of 1921-2. The width of the road was
not then ascertained, but a typical section consisted of a
foundation of coarse gravel 1˝ ft. to 2 ft. thick
under a layer of fine pebbles grouted with chalk ; above these
was an irregular line of large flints.65
Reference has been made by several writers to a supposed Roman
milestone found during the 18th century in the parish of
Southfleet. According to Hasted 66 the stone ‘
lay on its side, about a foot below the surface of the
ground, on the remains of the Roman Watling-street-road,
northward from Betsham, at the western corner of it, where the
road from thence to Gravesend joins the Shinglewell-road, at
Wingfield-bank.’ A variant account states that, near
Barkfields or Bagfields,‘there was some few years ago
a very fair milestone discovered. It stood upright in the
ground with its crown about four or five inches below the
surface. I measured it soon after it was dug up. It was two
feet and a half long, two of its sides were sixteen inches
each, the other two fourteen, its corners were chiselled, but
its faces were very rustic. However, upon one of the sides was
a very fair X cut, which was undoubtedly to show that it stood
10 miles from some particular place.67a
The stone is now in the Maidstone Museum ; there
is no adequate reason for regarding it as a Roman
milestone, and the X which it bears is disproportionately
small.67a
This ‘ milestone ‘ has been
used to support the theory that . Springhead represents the
site of the Roman ‘ Vagniacae,’ a place-name which
occurs only
62a Antiq.
Journ. viii, 339.
63 See
especially Brit. Arch. Assoc. Journ. i, 155 ; and Arch.
Review, iii ( 1889), 136.
64 Arch.
Cant. xvii, 209 ; Numis. Chew. ser. iii, vii
(1887), 312 . For Springhead kiln, see below p. x 131,
No. 7.
65 Antiq. Journ. viii,
338.
66 Hist. i, 1778, 271.
67 Dunkin, Springhead
Memo. p. 135 and Arnold in Arch Cant. xviii,
185. Corpus Inscr. Lat. vii, zo8.
67a For a real milestone now in
Maidstone Museum, see below, under Roads, p. 137. |