A Lower/Middle Palaeolithic flint-knapping workshop on the valley-side above the northern corner of the chalk quarry to the southeast of All Saints Church, Frindsbury, was excavated in August 1924 (1, 2, 3). An area of c. 3m x 7.5m was excavated by hand, and abundant fresh-condition artefacts were found in a frost-contorted chalk-rich loam/brickearth deposit c. 1m thick, overlying an uneven surface of Chalk bedrock (and filling a shallow saucer-shaped depression in it), with the top of the sequence at c. 31m OD. A resulting collection of 500 artefacts rapidly entered the collection of the British Museum (accession 1925, 11-12), and was examined for the Medway Valley Palaeolithic Project in 2005 (4). Roe (5) also reports artefacts from the site in Maidstone Museum and Rochester Museum. Some of the artefacts in the British Museum (including one of the handaxes) are marked "August 1923" which may have been in error, or it may reflect partial discovery of the site a year before the main excavation. Two handaxes (maybe three, see Summary above) were found, but the artefacts are mostly flakes (n=448), cores (n=23) and simple flake-tools (n=24, comprising 11 notched flakes, 12 scrapers and one utilised flake). The handaxes are slightly more-abraded, and slightly more-patinated, than the rest of the collection so it is uncertain whether or not they belong with the rest of the collection, which shows no technological evidence of being associated with handaxe manufacture. The artefacts were found in 17 distinct clusters. However, although many of the artefacts refit, these heaps more-likely represent local post-depositional ground-heaving rather than undisturbed scatters. Site listed in the Southern Rivers Palaeolithic Project (6, 7).

<1> OS Card / NAR index, OS 6" 1932 8 (Unpublished document). SKE6461.

<2> Cook, W.H. & Killick, J.R., 1924, On the discovery of a flint-working site of Palaeolithic date in the Medway Valley at Rochester, Kent (Article in serial). SKE13240.

<3> Wheatley SW, 1902, Notes and discoveries: Find of flint instruments and workshop at Frindsbury. (Article in serial). SKE51544.

<4> Wenban-Smith F. F., Bates M.R and Marshall G., 2007, Medway Valley Palaeolithic Project Final Report: The Palaeolithic Resource in the Medway Gravels (Kent) (Unpublished document). SKE29351.

<5> Roe, D.A., 1968, Gazetteer of British Lower and Middle Palaeolithic Sites, p 153 (Monograph). SWX6570.

<6> Wessex Archaeology, 1993, The Southern Rivers Palaeolithic Project, Report No.2: The South West and South of the Thames [Vol. I - text], M5.7 (Monograph). SWX6569.

<7> Wessex Archaeology, 1993, The Southern Rivers Palaeolithic Project: maps for Report No. 2, Regions 4 & 1, The South West and South of the Thames [Vol II - maps], M 5.7 (Unpublished document). SKE12023.