6 seasons by the decay of the herbage or corn growing above the walls. The higher part of the field referred to is called the Upper War Bank. Here Mr. Kempe discovered the foundation of a circular building flanked with buttresses, a square tomb of stone, a stone sarcophagus, and the grave of a second which had been, some time before, removed to Wickham Court. Mr. Kempe also excavated portions of an extensive building in the lower field. In 1854, Mr. G. R. Corner followed up with some success Mr. Kempe's researches, and published the result in the thirty-sixth volume of the Archæologia,' together with extracts from AngloSaxon Charters giving boundaries of the locality which throw a remarkable and, I think, conclusive light on the etymology both of Keston and of War Bank. The details of these researches, as given in the 'Archæologia,' prove that a vicus of considerable extent occupied the fields now in cultivation, and that the burialplace was on the higher ground, the circular building supposed a temple being probably a tomb; but no inscription told who were the tenants of the cemetery, although they must have been comparatively wealthy, and the name of the vicus is also still shrouded in oblivion. Unfortunately the distances from the places between which the Noviomagus of the Itinerary of Antoninus is placed, do not warrant our seeing in the ruins of the War Bank fields, important as they are, the ruins of this station.* Mr. Corner shews, I think satisfactorily, that the name is not derived, as has been supposed, from the oppidum at Holwood Hill, or from any such Roman remains to which the Saxon applied the term "Chester," * I have given my reasons at length on this subject in the Archæologia Cantiana, Vol. X., pp. 170, 171. which had led to "Casterton" and "Keston;" but that from these tombs and sarcophagi the Saxon settlers called the place Cystaning, or "The Field of Stone Coffins." This became converted into the "Chestan" of Domesday Book, and subsequently as it now stands, Keston. The first of the Charters in which Mr. Corner found the name among other boundaries, is of Æthelberht, King of Wessex, dated A.D. 862, by which he gave to Dryghtwald, ten carucates of land at Bromleagh; the two others being grants of this land at Bromley, the one by King Edgar, A.D. 966, to St. Andrew, and Elstan Prior of the Church of Rochester; the other by Edeldred, in 987, to Aelsige, his minister; in these the boundaries are described much as in the first. In all of these appears "Cystaninga Mearce," Keston Mark, and "Weardsetle," which must be the Watch Tower, now the War Bank. It will be at once admitted that the names of these places are satisfactorily explained by the charters, and that they correct the popular derivations. When our Saxon forefathers took possession of the land, they found it covered with Roman buildings, often deserted and nameless. To such places they had to give names which were frequently suggested by natural objects, or, as here, by prominent works of art. The stone coffins or cysts, and ing, a field, suggested the name of Cystaning; the circular building they did not so well understand, and supposing it a watch tower called it Weardsettle. (8) NOTES ON KENTISH EARTHWORKS. BY W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE. THE following notes are the results of an examination of more than fifty, out of about seventy, earthworks and reputed remains, referred to in various maps and works on Kent; and it is desirable to give a brief report on the present state of the early remains of this county, as they have not yet been thus treated collectively. Surveys were made of many of the works, and the plans were exhibited at the Society's annual meeting at Bromley, in illustration of these notes; most of those plans are here reproduced on a scale of one-twelfth of the original sheets, merely to shew the forms, and not professing to retain the full accuracy of the large plans. It may be convenient to state the exact distance of each work from the nearest village, as much time is wasted in identifying the positions of remains from the usually loose descriptions. The CAMPS may be taken as the first and most important class of earthworks. Of these, plans were exhibited at Bromley of Castle Hill, one and a half miles N.W. of Folkestone* (recently excavated by General Lane Fox); Shottenden Mill, three quarters of a mile S. of Selling;* a fragment of a camp half a mile N.W. of Blackheath;* another fragment half a * Reproduced here. mile N.N.W. of Charlton ;* and a work S.W. of Stockbury Church, which probably retains a pre-mediæval form, though something has been built in it. At half a mile E. of Ewell near Dover (prompted by the name of Lousyberry wood), I found some defensive works on a hill with three tumuli.* There were similar works on a hill opposite to it, which are now destroyed. There are other camps around Coldred Church; at Bigberry Wood, three miles W. of Canterbury (already published in Archæologia Cantiana); Iffins Wood, two miles S.S.W. of Canterbury; perhaps at Whitehall, one mile W. of Canterbury; Judd's Hill, one and a quarter miles W. of Faversham; Oldbury, one mile W. of Ightham; Fossberry, one and a quarter miles E.S.E. of East Malling; at half a mile N.E. of Keston; one mile E.N.E. of Cobham; Castle Hill, two miles S.E. of Tunbridge, and Perry Wood, one mile S.W. of Selling. These have mostly been surveyed already, and they are nearly all impossible to re-survey more accurately, without some clearing of the woods. An interesting rectangular camp, half a mile E.S.E. of Queenborough, has recently been cultivated, and will soon disappear entirely. In the Ordnance Map there is the "site of camp" at Tolsford Hill, one mile S.E. of Postling, which I could not visit; and also "site of a British camp" near Wye Racecourse, one mile E. of Wye. Some authority for this description is required, for there is no bank or fortification, and the pits are none of them of the character of pit dwellings, but rather of flint-digger's pits; being deep and conical, not saucer-shaped, and having the earth thrown out in irregular heaps. The second class of works consists of the MOATS * Reproduced here. AND MOAT CAMPS, which abound in Kent and Sussex perhaps more than in any other district. Surveys were exhibited of Castle Rough, three quarters of a mile E.N.E. of Milton by Sittingbourne, said to be made by Alfred; (there is said to have been a Danish entrenchment at Bayford near Sittingbourne), also a camp, half a mile E. of Queenborough;* and a similar site one and a quarter miles E.N.E. of Newenden,* which has a large tripartite mound at one corner, and which has been considered Roman. Castle Bank, one and a half miles S. of Staplehurst, and Castle Hill, one mile N.E. of Brenchley, are also large moats, the latter yet retaining water, though some way up a hillside; both of these are in such thick woods that I could not survey them. There is also a moat at half a mile W. of Sevington; and an entrenchment at Kennardington is perhaps of the same character. Many sites on which camps are stated to have existed are now cultivated. At Preston, Each near Ash, Sandwich, Ripple, and Richborough Hill, there are no remains of any camps; at Kingsdown, near Walmer, I did not see any; at Dover, the camp, N.W. of the Castle, has been destroyed for a modern fort; and at Statenborough, though the ground is not cultivated, there is no camp to be seen. Numerous sites which once bore a camp or fort, by their name of bury, are now bare of any remains. The following were examined; Downbury Farm, near Pembury; Hockenbury and Dunbury, near Staplehurst; Tattlebury, near Headcorn; Tatlingbury, near Capel; and Perry Hill, near Cooling; and there are certainly no remains at these places as far as can be At Pembury, Frindsbury, Wateringbury, and seen. * Reproduced here. |