In 2007 an evaluation and excavation by the Trust for Thanet Archaeology located a Neolithic ditch. The ditch had a narrow causeway across it at one point and was dug in short interlinked sections. It was c.2.6m and c.1m deep, and, plotting a likely full circuit based upon the exposed section's curve, would form an enclosure with a diameter of c.104m. The features were shown to be cut deep into the upper chalk geology, probably in a series of separate components that eventually combined to form a continuous curvilinear ditch. The ditch is likely to have enclosed an area to the south although no internal features were identified when the area was stripped. The ditch may have remained open for some time being carefully cleaned out and maintained, the earliest deposits within the ditch were chalk spreads and fine silty clay of natural origin that appear to have eroded into the ditch through frost action. Pottery and animal bone were mixed within the deposit. Two cattle skulls were found close to the base at the eastern end and at the western end of the same ditch. A human femur was found in the upper parts of these deposits

The naturally derived fill deposits were truncated by a pit, filled with laminated chalk and silty clay deposits, this may have been cut in search for flints that were reached in a seam in the chalk at the base.

A series of hollows with gently sloping side were recut into the earliest fills. These contained deposits of loam distinct from the clay and chalk below. Pottery, flintwork and animal bone were present in this material, including some decorated sherds of Neolithic date. The eastern terminal had a small pit cut in the centre, filled with fine ashy material containing more decorated pottery and fine flintwork. The pit had been filled with a deposit of clay then recut with a broader hollow with sloped sides. This second cut was also filled with a fine ashy deposit containing neolithic pottery and mussel shells. The western terminal contained similar recuts filled with organic debris, marine shell and animal bone.

In many of the hollows the uppermost fills contained spreads of disarticulated animal bone, including pig, sheep/goat, cattle and horse, suggesting the disposal of substantial amounts of butchery or food waste into the gentle hollows that formed over the ditches and cuts below. Pottery below this was of later prehistoric date, suggesting use of the site continued after the Neolithic period.
(1)

<1> Trust for Thanet Archaeology, 2007, Court Stairs Lodge, Pegwell Road, Ramsgate: Interim Excavation Report (Unpublished document). SKE17741.