Homestall and Bigbury Camp

LiDAR – Bigbury Camp & Homestall Camp – Kent Location: 51°16’49”N 1°01’45”E DTM- (Digital Terrain Model, i.e. No buildings or foliage) Kent HER: TR15 NW33 & TR15 NW1599 Just to the west of Canterbury and due south of the A2 lies the bivallate contour hillfort, Bigbury Camp. 625m in length and 14.3Ha. Now part-occluded by forest, gravel quarrying in the late 1800’s has reduced the defences across the site. Excavations in the early 1960’s revealed evidence of a strong palisade at the base of the ditch as well as: ‘East Kent Early Iron Age, “A” gritted ware, and an ovoid sling-bolt of burnt clay precisely matched by one from a hill-fort in Belgium. In 1932-33 excavations also discovered a slave gang chain more than 18 ft in length and including several neck collars.’ -Kent HER The date-range of the finds is between circa 800BC to 42 AD (Roman Invasion). An old road ‘Pilgrim Road or Way bisects the site east-west. To its north across the A2 lies Blean Wood. This contains a massive univallate defended area 800m at its widest point and enclosing an area of 35 hectare’s named Homestall Wood Camp. The site has multiple gaps in its circumference with various paths bisecting the area. There appears to be a large ingress-ramp at the SE corner. At the SW corner a large rectangular area is obvious on the LiDAR, which incidentally is how this site was discovered in 2010. Its morphology suggests a Roman Camp but there have been no further listed investigations. (Scheduled Monuments) Iron Age tribal association (conjecture based on location): Cantiaci Descriptions from The Atlas of Hillforts. Maps from Google. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.