Monument record TQ 92 SE 7 - "The Flot" Sea Defence, Brookland

In september 1995 Cotswald Archaeological Trust carried out an archaeological Survey on farmland and earthworks on and adjacent to the Flot, Brookland, Kent. The work was part of the environmental assessment for the A259 Walland Marsh Improvement. The survey consisted of two elements; an earthwork survey of part of the medieval sea defences known as the Flot, which partly lies on the route of the present A259, and a fieldwaling survey on arable farmland immediately to the south. Both areas lie within the corridor of the preferred route.

The sea defences probably date from the early to mid 13th century and formed the principle line of defence from incursion of the sea from the south. The earthwork survey was centred on a repair of the sea wall. This repair was neccessary after the sea breached the defences when land immediately to the south was over-run by the sea in the late 13th and 14th century. The land recovered by the fieldwalking was reclaimed in the 14th and 15th century.

Evidence for activity pre-dating the medieval inundation exists in the form of an undated ditchsystem lying 1.4.km to the south-west of the Flot, sealed by a thick deposit of marine sediment. the fieldwalking survey on reclaimed farmland yielded no archaeologically significant material, but the presence of deeply buried archaeological deposits sealed below the marine sediments can not be totally discounted(1-2).

<1> Cotswold Archaeological Trust, 1995, A259 Walland Marsh Improvement Archaeological Fieldwalking and Earthwork Survey (Unpublished document). SKE7186.

<2> Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 1995, A Report on the Geoarchaeological Potential of the A259 Walland Marsh Road Improvement Scheme Draft (Unpublished document). SKE7187.

<3> Romney Marsh Research Trust, 1992, A Report on the Archaeological Implications of an Area North of Brookland Kent (Unpublished document). SKE7199.

<4> Romney Marsh Research Trust, 1992, Report on the Archaeological Implications of the corridor of Interest A259 Brookland, Kent (Unpublished document). SKE7200.