Two possible Saxon corn dryers containing a limited quantity of Saxon pottery were recorded on the eastern edge of excavations undertaken by Wessex Archaeology ahead of development at Ebbsfleet. The first comprised a roughly circular heat chamber c. 1.6m in diameter connected at the east to a 1.5m long flue structure. A post-hole mid-way along the flue may have been a variable damper for the heat, or may have been designed to seal the chamber. Charcoal and a large quantity of burnt clay, some with wattle impressions, were recovered from the fill of the chamber. Some of the burnt wood (charcoal) may actually have been part of the original kiln structure (i.e. from the wattle frame). A second ‘corn dryer’ located to the north-east of the first was very similar in appearance but undated. However, although it also contained burnt clay with wattle impressions and large fragments of charcoal, the environmental evidence suggests it may have had a different function to that of the other. (1)

<1> Wessex Archaeology, 2006, Springhead Quarter Phase 1, Ebbsfleet, Kent. Archaeological Excavation Results Summary (Unpublished document). SKE30745.