Boys Hall Balancing Pond, Sevington, Kent - Post Excavation Assessment Report

As part of an extensive programme of archaeological investigation carried out in advance of the construction of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), the Oxford Archaeological Unit were commissioned by Union Railways (South) Limited to undertake a strip, map and sample excavation at Boys Hall Balancing Pond, Sevington, in Kent. The site lay immediately adjacent to Boys Hall Moat, the site of the moated manor of Sevington, which is a Scheduled Ancient Monument (Kent SAM 146). A single sherd of late Bronze Age pottery is the only evidence to suggest that the earliest features on the site may be a group of ditches which perhaps formed a field system. The majority of the features excavated date from the late Iron Age and Roman period. A series of closely spaced parallel ditches, again perhaps part of a field system, as well as the earliest of a small cluster of cremations in pits, can be dated to the earlier part of this period (late Iron Age - c AD 70). One of the ditches in this group, and three further cremations can be dated to the later part (c AD 70-200). A further cremation in the same cluster contained no pottery but probably dates from the same general phase. Two large ditches and a small cobbled area are post-medieval in date, and are probably related to the formal gardens which were laid out around Boys Hall Moat in that period.