EXCAVATIONS AT ECCLES, 19691
EIGHTH INTERIM REPORT
By A. P. DETSIOAS, M.A., F.S.A.
lNTRODUOTION
ExoAVATIONS were undertaken by the Eccles Excavation Committee
for an eighth season, beginning in early April and terminating at the
end of October, 1969, at the site of the large Romano-British villa
at Rowe Place Farm, Eccles, in the parish of Aylesford (N.G.R.
TQ 722605; O.S. 6-inch Sheet TQ 76 SW). A continuous fortnight's
work was also carried out in August, during which period a Training
Course in Romano-British Archreology was based on the site.
Permission to continue with this work was again readHy granted by
the landowners, Messrs. Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers
Limited. I am once more greatly in the debt of their tenant farmers,
Messrs. A. A. & A. C. Southwe11, for their welcome on their land and for
continuing to facilitate our work by their generous co-operation.
Financial assistance for this work wa-s given by the Kent Archreological
Society, the British Academy, the Society of Antiquaries of
London, the Haverfield Bequest of the University of Oxford and other
private contributors.
The major burden of the work fe]l upon many volunteers, amongst
them several members of the Lower Medway Archreological Research
Group, without whose help this excavation could not have been undertaken
and whom space considerations alone prevent me from mentioning
individually. I must, nevertheless, make an exception in the case of the
following to whom I am particularly indebted for their continuous
support throughout the season's work: Mrs. D. Cloake, Miss S. M.
Emerton, Miss M. B. V. Webster, and Messrs. I. J. Bissett, R. W.
Chapman, N. H. Cloake, A. C. Ha.rrison, B.A., F.S.A., 0. K. Hales,
T. Hetherington, T. Ithell, B.Eng., W. A. Knowles, R. Lowson, B.A.,
C. E. J. Martin, and P. Thornhill, B.A. I am also grateful to Mr. I. J.
Bissett, for continuing dra,w the pottery a,nd the small finds; Miss D.
1 Arch. Oant., lxxviii (1963), 125-41; lxxix (1964), 121-35; lxxx (1965), 69-91;
lxxxi (1966), 44-52; lx.wi (1967), 162-78; lxxxhi (1968); 39-48, and lxxxiv (1969),
93-106. I am once age.in personally indebted to Professor S.S. Frere, M.A., F.S.A.,
for his practical support of the work of the Eccles Excavation Committee over the
yea a11:d for his kindness in rea.ding through this report in dra and suggesting
various unprovements.
55
EXCAVATIONS AT EOOLES, 1969
Charlesworth, M.A., F.S.A., for reporting on the glass; Miss S. M.
Emerton, for much help with field drawing; Mr. R. G. Foord, for the
monochrome site-photography and two of the prints illustrating this report;
Mrs. K. F. Hartley,B.A.,for reporting on the mortaria; Dr.J. P. C.
Kent, B.A., Ph.D., F.S.A., for identifying the coins; and Mr. R. P.
Wright, M.A., F.S.A., for reading and reporting on the graffiti. Finally,
I must a]so acknowledge my indebtedness to my wife for undertaking
the initial processing of the pottery.
Tm: Exo.A.V ATION
This season's work was intended to continue the examination of the
villa's living quarters to south-east of the area reached in 1968 and to
trench across the lines of the underlying ditches.
Periods I-II, to c . .A.D. 55
Ditch 1v2 was sectioned to north-east and south-west of the villa's
main block.of rooms, and its total known length has now reached some
135 ft.; its outline and dimensions remain unchanged, and it had been
filled in with a deposit of soft brown soil which is equated with the
topsoil in Romano-British times. No material was found in this filling
to determine the ditch's dating; on the other hand, as its alignment is
not quite parallel with that of Ditch VI, it is clear that these two ditches
are not contemporary.
Ditch vs was not found at the north corner of the central of three
trenches cut across the width of Room 106 where it should ha,ve passed
if it were rectilinear; it must be assumed, therefore, that it has changed
direction and passed under the unexcavated area to south-east of this
room's north corner.
Dit,cJ,, JV4 was sectioned by four trenches, and its known length is
now0 rather more than 213 ft.; though a slight deviation in its course
has been noted, it remains rectilinear and of approximately the same
width (S ft.) and depth (3 ft. 9 in.) as in the 1968 trenches. Towards the
south-eastern limit of the site, this ditch is very difficult to distinguish
from the subsoil through which it had been cut as its back-filling consists
of practically identical material. o A terra nigra plate, stamped ANDOR,7
2 Arch. Oant., lxxxiv (1969), 94.
8 lbw., 94.
' lbi,d., 94-5.
6 The line of this ditch is not shown on Fig. 1 to its full known extent at the
extreme southern area. of the site.
0 The same difficulty was experienced in previous years with a similar
ditch (Ditch II) further to west of the site; cf. Arch. Oant., lxxxii (1967), 164, and
Fig. I.
1 At Colchester dated A.D. 43/44-61; of. C. F. C. Hawkes and M. R. Hull,
Oamulodunwm, Oxford, 1947, 208.
56
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EXCAVATIONS AT ECCLE.S, 1969
was recovered almost intact from the filling of this ditch near its present
southern limit and confirms its dating to earlier than c. A.D. 65.8
· The purpose of these ditches remains, at present, uncertain, and
they can best be considered as cut for drainage rather than to enclose
an area.9
Periods IV-V, c. A.D. 65-180: Room, 94
A fresh section was cut across the line of the feature provisionally
known as Room 94,10 and vestigial traces of the very loose foundation
deposits for its walls were again recorded. Though these were present
about 2 ft. further to south-east than their alignment in the 1968
trenches, they remain 12 - 9 in. apart as before and extend at least
97 ft. 9 in. to south-east; the change in alignment could mean a corner
in the unexcavated area between the last two seasons' trenches.
The whole area where this feature is sited had been badly disturbed
by an extensive and deep excavation which had removed most of the
Romano-British layers; in the back-filling of this deep excavation were
found fragments of tile and a few sherds which appear to be of postRoman
date. A consideration of the few undisturbed layers suggests
that a buildingll may have been sited here and survived only long
enough to fulfil the purpose for which it was originally erected;12 it
was later removed as it could not be allowed to obstruct the view from
the main range of rooms to its north-east and the area, back-filled with
various debris layers. However, the pottery recovered from these
layers is mainly of Ia.te-.Antonine date which indicates that Room 94
must have survived till well after the middle of the second century
A.D.; if so, this could mean that the main block faced originally to
north-east and not to south-west, as would be more normal and has
hitherto been assumed, and that this area was in the rear of the villa
until at least c. A.D. 180. In its turn, this would also mean that it was
only at the time of one of the villa's reconstructions (Period VII, c • .A.D.
180-290) that this area became an internal courtyard with a south-west
aspect uninterrupted by Room 94. Much further work is necessary in
this area in order to elucidate the purpose of this long feature.
·a Arch. Oant., lxxxiv (1960}, 04-5.
9 Ibid., 95.
10 Ibid., 95-6.
11 This is suggested by the very flimsy construction of the foundations for these
walls which were filled with a loose deposit of building debris a.nd wall-plaster
fragments and were perhaps not intended to support anything much heavier tha.n
a wooden superstructure.
12 This could be housing for the workmen engaged on the construction of the ·
ma.in house, as Professor D. E. Strong, M.A., D.Pbil., F.S.A., has suggested to me.
On the other hand, it is unlikely that such temporary housing would have been
internally rendered with opus signinum, and painted; of. Arch. Oant., Ixxxiii (1968}
40-1.
'
57
EXCAVATIONS AT ECCLES, 1969
Period VI, c. A.D. 65-120: The Li,ving Quarters
Examination of the earliest house was continued and a further five
rooms were a.dded to the pla,n of the villa..
Room 108 measures 24 ft. by 13 ft. 6 in., Room 111 24 ft. 6 in. by
20 ft., Room 112 24 ft. 6 in. by 21 ft. 6 in. and Room 113 24 ft. 6 in. by
13 ft. 3 in.; the length of Room 114 is not yet esta.blished. The floors of
these rooms did not survive as they were immediately below the modern
ploughsoil; in all oases, however, they are likely to have consisted of
yellow mortar, possibly as a base for tiling, laid on a thick make-up
layer of re-deposited yellowish clay which was preserved below the
topsoil and heavily scored by the plough. The waUs of all these rooms
ha.d been mostly robbed but, where surviving, consisted of the standard
construction for this period, i.e. of bright yellow mortar and ragstone.
It was observed, too, that the partition walls between Rooms 108 and
111-115 were 6 in. thicker than such walls further to north-west. As
wholesale robbing has removed the evidence, it cannot be shown
whether the extra thickness denotes additions to an original range of
rooms, ending perhaps with Room 108, or whether Rooms 111-114 are
of one construction with the rest; but, as the mortar used for the building
of the walls of these rooms, where preserved (Plate I), is the same
as for those further to north-west, it is safer to assume some other
reason, at present not certainly known,13 for the thickening of these
partition walls.
Period V, c. A.D. 120-180: The Li,ving Quarters
Two further trenches were out across the fronting corridor of the
villa,, extending its known length to 176 ft. 6 in.; as was found in 1968,
the wall of the corridor had been completely robbed, though traces
remained in siflu of its external rendering in painted wall-plaster.14
All that survived of the corridor's flooring was its make-up of bright
yellow sandy clay, with a few disturbed patches of yellow mortar upon
it which indicate a, tiled floor.
Fresh evidence wa,s found for the wooden pipeline running immediately
to the south-west of the corridor's wall, and two more iron collars
(Fig. 1, i-j) of this pipeline were recorded in situ within the trench cut
for the insertion of the pipeline.
Period VI, c. A.D. 180-190: Tlie Li,ving Quarters
Several trenches were out aorosr. the length of Room 104, part of the
villa's rear corridor (Fig. 2). The known length of this room is some
13 The extra, thickness roa,y indicate a higher, more stately range of rooms, in
the middle of the block, as suggested to me by Professor S.S. Frere, M.A., F.S.A.;
ago.inat this, however, it. must be noted that the floors of these rooms were not
even tessellated.
u Arch. Oant., lxxxiii (1968), 45.
58
1'/toto: JI. G. Foord
West Corner of Hoom l l!.
1'1. \TE II
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Foord
J i hut.u: A· P. 1Jet8kcui
EXCAVATIONS AT ECCLES, 1969
134 ft. 6 in. Robbing here was not quite so extensive as in other parts
of the building, and a length of its north-east wall survived to show its
standard construction of ragstone and yellow mortar. Evidence also
survived for the flooring of this rear corridor; the floor consisted of
standard hypocaust pila-tiles (9 by 9 by l½ in.) la-id on a foundation of
yellow mortar of an average thickness of 3 in. and deposited directly on
debris layers serving as make-up (Plate II, A); on this evidence, it must
now be almost certain that this tiled floor had been laid on the remainder
of this part of the corridor's length where only the mortar underlay bas
survived.
Period VII, c. A.D. '290-400: The Living Quarters
Further work in the area. of the rea,r corridor of the villa exposed
two new partition walls, sub-dividing Room 104 into smaller units;
these partitions were 2 ft. wide, built of ragstone and yellow mortar
and clearly abutted on the north-east walls of the main block and its
rear corridor.16 Room 106 measures 31 ft. 6 in. by 11 ft. 6 in'., Room 107
10 ft. 9 in. by 11 ft. 6 in.; the complete length of Room 115 is still to be
determined.
Another new partition wall, built during this period of the &a.me
materials and to the same width, sub-divided the earlier Room 108
into two smaller ones (Figs. 1 and 2), Room 109 measuring 13 ft. 6 in. by
10 ft. 9 in., and Room 110 measuring 13 ft. 6 in. by 11 ft. 9 in.
A second apsidal recess (Room 105) was constructed during this
period outside the east corner of Room 101. Its wall was built on a
foundation layer of loose ragstone chippings; over this had been spread
a layer of consolidating yellow mortar, followed by two courses of
mortared ragstone. Above these latter were at least two courses of
mortared bonding-tiles. A deep pit had been cut into the Gault Clay
subsoil within the apse and was filled with debris and some silt at the
very bottom; this suggests that this room was used as a latrine (Plate
II, B).It seems now clear that the adjacent Room 100, with its quarterround
moulding of opus signinum,16 must have been used as a
wash-rpom.
A length of ditch (Ditch VII) or , ra,ther more precisely, a series of
contiguous rubbish-pits, had been cut outside the outer wall of the rear
corridor and beyond the north corner of Room 115. This ditch was
about 3 ft. 9 in. wide, with an irregular V-shaped profile and an average
depth of some 3 ft.; the total length of this feature is not yet known. It
had been filled in with much building debris and pottery which is
u The dividing walls of Rooms 97 and 101 may be contemporary with those of
Rooms 106 and 107 but, as the foundation trenches of the former are shallower
than the latter's, these walls have provisionally been assigned to separate phases.
16 Arch. Oant., lxxxiv (1969), 99.
69
EXCAVATIONS AT ECCLES, 1969
consistently of late-third to fourth-century .A.D. date; this da.ting is
further supported by several worn coins found in this filling which
range from Gallienus to Diocletian.
Two infant burials were found to north of this ditch, but it could not
be certainly established whether they were inserted during the occupation
of the villa as no grave goods were found in unmistakable
association with them.
DATING
The eighth season's work at the site has not brought to light any
fresh evidence requiring a revision of the provisional dating sequence
proposed in earlier reports;17 on the other hand, the pottery and coins
recovered in sealed deposits amply confirm it.
SUMMA.RY .AND DrsoussroN
Fig. 2 summarizes the development of the villa's living quarters
throughout the occupation of the site so far as it is lmown after eight
seasons' examination of the surviving structures, and little more can
be added to what has already been discussed in the previous interim
reportl8 beyond noting that, even with the addition of five new rooms
to the plan of the villa, the south-east end of the house is still to be
reached.
Apart from establishing eventually the function of each one of
these rooms, the main question that still remains to be answered was
posed at the very outset of this excavation when it was realized that the
Eccles villa was built much earlier tha.n :is normal elsewhere and to
such a scale as to proclaim wealth and social prominence. However, no
certain evidence has yet been obtained to throw light on the question of
ownership. It bas already been suggested, in previous reports,19 that the
original builder of the villa may have been a rich philo-Roman Briton
who adopted Roman patterns of living within a generation of the
conquest; recently, the suggestion has been made that the owner may
have been a government officiaJ.20 It i s to be hoped that these
alternatives may be resolved when the e;x:cavation of the villa, is
complete.
11 Ibid., 104.
u Ibid., 104-6.
10 Ibid., lxxix (1964), 135; 1=x (1965), 89, and lxxxiv (1969), 105.
20 Ourrent Archa3ology, July, 1970, 286.
60
TWO LOST COURT LODGES-LONGFIELD .AND WOOTTON
By A. BA.KER, A.R.I.B.A., and S. E. RrooLD, M.A., F.S.A.
THE designation 'Court', or 'Court Lodge', of such a high proportion of
Kentish manor-houses often denotes an origin among the endowments
of one of the great religious houses, or among episcopal temporalities.
This is but one of the reasons why they often conceal remains of
medieval stone buildings, and in particular of the specialized plans
required by the clergy. Longfield Court (TQ603690) and Wootton
Court (TR225466) have both been utterly demolished since the last
war, and, apart from a hard-to-come-by note on Longfield, neither has
been described in print in any modem fashion-even Sir Charles
Iggleaden's Saunter never took him to their small and secluded parishes.
Nor was any notice given for an adequate survey before demolition
since neither house had any statutory 'listing'. The accounts that
follow are based on salvaged information.
LONGFIELD Cou:aT
Longfield was an ancient possession of St . .Andrew of Rochester, a
'dog-legged' feld or clearing, 3½ miles long and ¼ mile wide. At the time
of Domesday, it had been assigned to the Bishop and was held of him
by Anschitil the priest who, at least by 1107-8, was his .Archdeacon.1
Thereafter, the Bishop regularly granted it to the Archdeacon,2 and this
arrangement persisted until the learned Archdeacon Plume, founder of
the Plume Library at Maldon, Essex, was buried-at Longfield in 1704.
Presumably all these Archdeacons lived, on occasion, at Longfield
Court, but when Harris wrote in 1719, he called it a 'farmhouse', albeit
a massive one,a and thanks to this reduced status it escaped rebuilding
in the eighteenth century. In the mid-nineteenth century the Ecclesiastical
Commissioners disposed of it. 4
In the 1950s both authors had noticed :the medieval flint,vork
appearing through the dense covering of ivy and creepers, though little
detail was visible other than Victorian. The house appeared to comprise
two attached ranges with gables at the north. In 1908, when it was less
overgrown externally but already much disguised inside, it had been
explored by C. E. Lovell who published a, brief aocount, with drawings
1 Domesday, f. 6b; Registr. Hamonis Hethe, 438.
3 Cf. the similar tenure of Lympne by the Archdeacon of Canterbury.
3 J. Harris, The History of Kent (1719), 187.
4 After 1836, but several changes of ownership before 1908.
61
TWO LOST COURT LODGES-LONGElIELD AND WOOTTON
of details but no plan, in the short-lived Architectural and Topographical
Record.6 In March, 1962, we learned that it was being demolished to
make way for more of the housing that has turned Longfield, in a
surprisingly short time, from a tiny village into a singularly charmless
little dormitory-town. We went at once to take what records we could,
but of the eastern of the two apparent ranges only a fragment of the
east wall, with a, flint quoin at the south-east, remained, and of the west
range only the west wall stood to plate level, the others being already
reduced to shoulder-level or lower. Among the pile of rubble were few
ashlar details, but quite a number of oak timbers, from which an
attempt has been made to reconstruct the roof of the west range. There
were also a fe,v timbers with heavy deposits of soot consistent with their
having at some time covered an open hearth. By June, 1962, not a trace
of the building remained and its site was co,vered by a road.
The walling was of field flints; the quoins and the surrounds of the
doors and windows were of ragstone, in long slabs, well-dressed and
generally in fair condition. Lovell called the openings 'thirteenth- and
fourteenth-century', and mistook an upper doorway (E) for a, lancet.
As far as we could see them, the dressings were in fact all of one, early
Perpendicular period, with neat hollow-chamfers and brooch or pyramid
stops (Fig. I, P), from the late fourteenth century or a little afterwards,
and there was no positive evidence that the medieval fabric of the
house was other than one build.
Lovell records that the medieval stonework and rafter-ends were
visible all along the west and south sides. The west range was certainly
a unitary stone building, 45 by 25 ft. externally, roofed north to south,
with a gable at the north, hipped at the south and of two storeys from
the beginning. But of the apparent east range only the southern part
was medieval-its termination in the west wall is clear in the only
known photograph of the exterior. The original plan was thus L-shaped,
and the south-eastern part was roofed east to west. At an unknown
later date the re-entrant was filled in and covered by a, gable, rather
higher than the other, and likewise facing north, thus producing a
nearly square ensemble. The entrance, with a Victorian porch, was in
this addition, beside the north-east angle of the west range; it led, as
Lovell records, to a. passage right through the house, :fia.nlted on the
right (west). side by five medieval arched doorways, one of which had
been blocked.
The west ra,nge comprised a spacious Great Chamber, or Solar, with
service-rooms and a.nother room (X) beside them on the ground floor:
the south-east quarter included a Hall, of which the further part of the
passage seen by Lovell was the screens-passage. There was, however,
6 The-A1·ohitect-ui·al and Topographical Record, London, I, 1908, 317-19.
62
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