Monument record TR 36 NE 471 - Late Bronze Age settlement/activity located on site of Tesco, Manston Road, Ramsgate, Kent

(TR36175 66500) Bronze Age Enclosures, Structures and Evidence of Activity/Possible Occupation.

Features included an enclosure ditch (Ditch 229) in the extreme south western corner of the site orientated north-south. Also present was a rectangular posthole structure (Structure 191) with possibly two phases of construction. Finds from this dated the structure to the Late Bronze Age. Two further ditches (Ditch 91 and Ditch 230) which are likely to be contemporary, formed an enclosure and are of likely Late Bronze Age date due to finds found within both ditches. A further ditch (Ditch 231) is also likely contemporary with ditches 91 and 230 but formed a separate enclosure.Four gully type features were also excavated in addition to a quarry(Quarry 219) and a pit(Pit 212) with finds of pottery and flint in the pit and the quarry, and bone in the quarry. (1-2) Two parallel curvilinear ditches, 175 and 231, lay to the north-east of the other Late Bronze Age ditches, and may have defined and enclosure lying mainly outside the limit of excavation to the east. (3)

Structure 191 was rectangular in plan and lay on the western edge of the excavation. It measured c. 10.0 x 3.50 m, was aligned north-west to south-east, and comprised 22 circular or sub-circular post-holes possibly representing two phases of construction. It is clear that the post-holes had been truncated to some degree, but their different depths may, to some extent, have reflected the varying thickness of the brickearth through which they were cut. (3)

The Manston road site might best be interpreted as an open, domestic settlement, probably based on a mixed farming economy, which developed during a period of agricultural intensification, and it serves to strengthen an emphasis on the growing importance of the Wantsum Channel during the Late Bronze age.

<1> Wessex Archaeology, 1996, Tesco Site, Manston Road,Ramsgate, Kent, Draft Interim Notes (Unpublished document). SKE16009.

<2> Wessex Archaeology, 1995, Tesco Site, Manston Road, Ramsgate, Kent, Archaeological Evaluation (Unpublished document). SKE13312.

<3> Wessex Archaeology, 2009, A Late Bronze Age, Anglo-Saxon, And Medieval Settlement Site At Manston Road, Ramsgate in "Kentish Sites And Sites Of Kent A Miscellany of Of Four Archaeological Excavations." (Article in monograph). SKE16055.