New Books
HISTORICAL ASSESSMENT AND SURVEY OF OLD BUILDINGS by Roger A C Cockett for the KAS Historic Buildings Committee
This booklet refers to itself as an advice note for people who care about old buildings and is aimed in particular at individuals who would like to find out more about their property. The first section deals with whether a building is ‘historic,’ and explains the purpose of the Statutory List compiled by English Heritage for the Department of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The booklet goes on to offer advice on sources of information on buildings that may not have met the criteria for inclusion on the Statutory List and hence on how to investigate the age and significance of buildings. The subsequent sections deal in some detail with how to carry out an historical assessment and a measured survey of a building. There are some helpful line drawings in the sections explaining the principles of undertaking a measured survey. Throughout the booklet references are made to publications that provide more information on various aspects of assessing and surveying buildings. The final 21 pages are taken up with three annexes providing information on helpful Government web pages; books on historic buildings in Kent; and an annotated list summarizing the contents of recommended books. All in all, a very useful advice note for would-be researchers of old buildings.
The 37-page, A4 size booklet is available from Roger Cockett, Shirlalee, New Barn Road, Southfleet, Gravesend, DA13 9PX. Price £2.40 including P&P. Cheques should be made payable to Roger Cockett.
The full content of the booklet, including illustrations, is also available on the KAS Research website at: www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/Research/04/00.htm.
HIGHSTEAD, near Chislet, Kent. EXCAVATIONS 1975–1977
The Archaeology of Canterbury (New Series) Vol IV
Paul Bennett, Peter Couldrey and Nigel Macpherson-Grant
One of the very earliest of the Trust’s excavations, being already underway when Tim Tatton-Brown was appointed as its first Director in 1976, quietly reached publication in the summer of 2007, a neat thirty years since the small excavation team left the site to the gravel quarry owners, Brett Group. The first site director was the late Richard Cross; and the early Trust annual reports give a glimpse into a world of youthful enthusiasm. The annual accounts for 1976–77 show ‘Highstead Site Costs’ at £969.34. Would that the rest of the story had been so simple! Writing up became a very stop/start process as excavations in Canterbury grew in scale and number along with the commitments and responsibilities of those involved. It is largely due to the watchful eye and financial support of English Heritage that the report finally reached publication.
The story is, of course, told in the book, which is provided with a foreword by Professor Barry Cunliffe. He writes: ‘Highstead, with its long sequence of occupation spanning the first millennium B.C. and early first millennium A.D., was excavated under difficult conditions between 1975 and 1977 in those pioneering days when rescue archaeology was in its infancy. It is a story well told by Paul Bennett in his preface and is a stark reminder of how hand-to-mouth archaeology was in the era before developer-funding. What the small dedicated team managed to recover during the course of those punishing years was little short of remarkable.’
The value of Highstead is two-fold. It is a type-site for Late Bronze Age and Iron Age settlement in eastern Britain and it provides a pottery sequence without parallel in the region which demonstrates not only the long durée development of ceramic technology throughout the first millennium but also the mobility of ideas—and of course people—between the Continent and Britain. It is no exaggeration to say that Highstead calls for a complete reassessment of connectivity in the Channel–North Sea zone.
Hardback, cloth-bound, dust jacket. 22 x 28 cm. 329 pages, 164 figures & 17 plates. ISBN 978 1 870545 11 2. Price £25.00 / €38.63 euros. Published by Canterbury Archaeological Trust Ltd & funded by English Heritage.
KAS members may be aware that changes are afoot with the distributors Heritage Marketing and Publications. Until their arrangements are complete, and while limited stocks last, the Highstead publication is available from 92A Broad Street, Canterbury, Kent CT1 2UL. Postage and packing will be charged at cost (£5.75). Personal callers are welcome.
EARLY MEDIEVAL GLASS VESSELS FOUND IN KENT by Winifred Stephens, M.Phil.
BAR British Series 424, 2006.
The result of 5 years of research, this volume forms a catalogue of the glass vessels of European migrants to Kent, from approximately AD450-700, in museums, archaeological trusts and societies and private collections. D B Harden’s survey of 1956 identified some 259 vessels, the majority from Kent. This survey updates that list and includes catalogues of collections of Kent, in national museums and in international museums, plus a catalogue of missing/lost vessels. 234 pages, with numerous B&W photos and illustrations depicting every extant vessel or fragment listed, plus 32 colour photos. The volume has kindly been donated by the author to the KAS Library, where it is available for research.
Price: £40.00. Available from BAR British, Archaeopress, Gordon House, 276 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 7ED. Tel: 01865 311914, email: bar@archaeopress.com.
Kent Archaeological Society
KENT RECORDS (NEW SERIES) Volume 4, parts 7 & 8.
Members are invited to subscribe to the forthcoming parts of the Kent Records, Volume 4 Parts 7-8. It is hoped to conclude the Feet of Fines for Kent for Richard II. In future parts to Volume 5 it is hoped to include further early Kent muster records, a 1548 listing from the British Library including transcripts of some now lost Elizabethan Musters for the town of Sandwich.
Price: £11.00, cheque payable to Kent Archaeological Society and sent to Ashton Lodge, Church Road, Lyminge. Folkestone CT18 8JA. Email queries: booksales@kentarchaeology.org.uk.
EXISTING PUBLICATION - Special Offer
Kent and East Sussex Underground
It will surprise many people that South-East England has a huge variety of underground features, ranging from simple pits dug for agricultural chalk (deneholes) to extensive subterranean quarries from which thousands of tons of stone were excavated. There are also natural caves, old military tunnels and shelters, follies and countless wells, cisterns, icehouses and cesspits.
This book, written by expert members of the Kent Underground Research Group (a specialist affiliated society of the Kent Archaeological Society), describes and explains many of the types of underground sites found in Kent and East Sussex.
The publication is available at the special price to KAS Members of £4 (includes p&p), from Mike Clinch (to whom cheques payable), 2 Parkhurst Rd, Bexley DA5 1AR.