During investigations associated with the construction of the Ramsgate Harbour Approach, road in 1997/1998, evidence for Anglo Saxon activity in the area came in the form of a sunken featured building which was discovered towards the southern end of the site.

It was discovered amongst the main post-hole/pit cluster within the late Bronze Age/ early Iron Age enclosure, at least some of those features may have been associated with this Anglo-Saxon structure, but the evidence remains equivocal. The building itself consisted of a rectangular pit, aligned north-west/ south-east and approximately 3.9m by 2.3m in plan, with steep sides and a flat base just under 0.3m deep. At the centre of each end was a single post-hole, 0.3m – 0.35m in diameter and 0.55m – 0.65m deep. The fill within the pit and post-holes contained a single sherd of organic-tempered pottery dating to c AD 550-700 (along with over 100 residual prehistoric sherds) as well as a number of interesting registered finds, including a bone pin-beater and a cylindrical shale object. Environmental sampling produced fragments of heat-affected clay, unidentified pottery, glass, hammerscale, mammal, bird and fish bone, eggshell, shell fragments of whelk, mussel, limpet, cockle, winkle and scrobicularia, as well as charcoal, grain and seeds. The structure seems to align with and potentially lie within an enclosure formed by a co-axial medieval field system which spread across most of the site and which was itself clearly associated with a medieval hollow way on the same alignment as the Chalk Hill road some 50m to the. It is thus possible that the medieval landscape had its origins in the Anglo-Saxon period.

Two subcircular post-holes, 0.5m in diameter, 0.3m deep and 1.3m apart, were located approximately 20m to the south-east of the sunken-featured building. The fill of one contained nine sherds of pottery dated to AD 550-700. The only other feature of probable Anglo-Saxon date lay some 180m to the north of this group, at the extreme eastern limit of excavation. This was an apparently subcircular pit which had been truncated by a later feature. Three sherds of Anglo-Saxon pottery (dated AD 600-725) were recovered from the fill of the pit. (information summarised from source) (1)

<1> 2019, Chalk Hill - Neolithic and Bronze Age Discoveries at Ramsgate, Kent (Monograph). SKE56208.

<2> Canterbury Archaeological Trust, 1997, Excavations at Chalk Hill, near Ramsgate, Kent 1997-98: Integrated assessment & updated research design (Unpublished document). SKE29640.