A number of later prehistoric features including pits, ditches, post-holes, water-holes, and cremations were excavated at Herne Bay Golf Course, Herne Bay during a strip, map, and sample excavation in 2016.

To the west of the site “capped by colluvium but cutting the alluvial fills of the palaeo-channel were two large and deep timber-lined pits taken to represent water-holes of perhaps mid-to-late Bronze Age date…Significant quantities of preserved wood, including worked fragments and perhaps a short section of log ladder…were recovered from the pits, which appeared to be of contemporary construction and use…. Cutting [one of the water holes] was an urned cremation burial, perhaps of Later Bronze Age date. A second perhaps contemporary urned cremation was found immediately west….’

'Adjoining [one of the water holes] to the east was an enigmatic, shallow, curving ditch, cut to a ‘U’-shaped profile with a rounded east terminal. The ditch appeared to form either a drip gulley for a circular building or the ditched boundary of a working area. The working area containing a large sub-circular pit and a significant number of post and stake holes. Two smaller pits continued the line of the curving ditch, one cutting the edge of the ditch terminal suggesting that the pit or both pits were later than the ditch…’

'Capping [the water hole], the later cremation and the post and stake holes was an extensive spread of burnt, crushed flint mixed with burnt soil, carbon and ash. The compact and trampled deposit formed what appeared to be a working surface. Burnt flint filled the terminal of the ditch and the large sub-circular pit and some but not all of the post and stake holes. A short section of outer curving ditch fell outside the spread of burnt flint, together with an oval-shaped pit.’

'Pottery, marine and terrestrial shell and degraded animal bones were recovered from many of the features. Most features were sampled for environmental and dating evidence… at least four phases of occupation may be represented by deposits and features located at [the south western side of the site] – the present-day manifestation of a much earlier palaeo-channel, with most features dating from the mid-to-late Bronze Age.’

'One final feature in this group of prehistoric features remains to be mentioned. This was a disturbed area of alluvium/palaeo-channel fill to the south of the burnt flint spread, found cutting the upper surface of the channel. This enigmatic, irregular feature which contained fragments of wood, may have been formed by an ancient tree-throw. All features in this area were capped by a masking deposit of colluvium.’

'A small number of shallow pits or hollows containing prehistoric pottery were found in the southern half of the spine road and in Area 1 and a single hollow containing a sherd of prehistoric pot was identified [to the north east of the site). A further concentration of shallow pits, hollows and perhaps ditches was identified [to the north west]. This area was badly truncated by Golf Course features but appears to represent an industrial focus, similar to that previously described but much less well preserved, with many of the amorphous features defined by fills containing quantities of burnt and crushed flint in a carbon-rich burnt soil matrix” (from the original report, 1).

<1> Canterbury Archaeological Trust, 2016, Herne Bay Golf Course, Herne Bay, Kent, CT6 7PG, Phase 1 strip map and sample (Unpublished document). SKE58058.