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Archaeologia Cantiana -
Vol. 1 1858 page 141
Discovery of
fragments of Ancient British, Romano-British, and Roman
Pottery,
found in a Chalk Cavern in Camden Park,
Chislehurst.
By
Robert Booth Latter Esq
Similar excavations have been discovered in various parts of
Gaul and Britain. Caesar ordered the caves into which
the Aquitanian Gauls had retreated to be closed up.
Those mentioned by Camden, discovered near Tilbury
and near Faversham, may, upon further examination
of the orifice of this pit, be identical in form, narrow
towards the top, and broad in expanding circle below,
contracting towards the base.
The sinkers of the pit probably had in view the extraction
of "marl" for agricultural purposes, referred to
by Pliny:—"The Britons used to sink pits one hundred
feet in depth, narrow at the mouth, but within of great
compass." And Tacitus refers to these pits as storehouses
for corn, and places of refuge from the enemy.
The opening towards the top, as has been stated, has
not yet been touched, but if on examination it shall be
found that the steining has been dislodged, it may be
inferred that the tool-cut blocks of chalk, and large flints
found among the bones, were those which had originally
formed the steining of the shaft or approach from above;
and if so, the bones of the animals (ruminants of the
woods and fields, animals of prey and of the chase) found below as well as above the fallen steining, have
belonged
to pit-fallen animals; whilst the watershed falling down
the extensive range of loamy sloping hills, may have carried
in its course any fragments of bone or pottery, landshells
or other light substances, into the opening thus
formed, especially as there is reason to suppose that the
surface around has been covered with wood and wild vegetation
to such an extent as to allow of no forewarning
of danger.
The "swallow" near Camden Park appears to have
been a boundary-mark in A.D. 862, mentioned in a Saxon
Charter of AEthelberht, King of Wessex, to Dryghtwald
his minister, granting ten carucates of land in Bromleag,
—"?anne fram Swelgende, Cregsetna haga, to sioxhiltre," |
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