Farmstead record MKE83416 - Sheepfold on Cliffe Marsh

Type: Single
Position: Isolated position
Survivial: Farmstead completely demolished
Notes: Sheepfold
(1-2)

The site of a 19th - 20th century sheep fold centred at TQ 7403 7732, recorded on historic OS maps. Current OS maps record the site as a sheep wash. The site occupies a sub-rectangular island measuring 28m x 36m surrounded by water-filled creeks or ditches. At least one building occupies the NE corner of the island. The island has two small bridges or causeways affording access into adjacent fields to the west and east.

Aerial photographs show the island to be formed by slightly raised ground with a central depression. It is possible that this represents the remains of a former medieval saltern mounds. These mounds are the result of large-scale salt manufacturing where brine was extracted from salt-rich sands and sediments, concentrated and evaporated using process known as sleeching. The discarded waste material from the process built up around the production area into a sizeable mound, often with a hollow in the centred where a hut stood. These medieval saltern mounds are typically described as floriate in form because of their irregular lobed formation of dumped waste. They often occur in clusters around former and surviving tidal water-courses within the marsh. There has been considerable reclamation and subsequent sea wall construction since the medieval period which has isolated these sites from the sea.

Many of these mounds were subsequently utilised as sheepfolds, sheep washes and stock refuges in the post medieval period because of their slightly elevated position in the readily flooded marshes.

Roman finds have been extracted from some of these sites, but are believed to be from the lower levels and not associated with the mounds. Post-Roman flooding and silt deposition has resulted in Roman sites lying typically several feet below the current land surface.

This site was mapped from aerial photographs as part of the English Heritage: Hoo Peninsula Landscape Project. (3-4)

<1> Forum Heritage Services, 2012, Kent Farmsteads & Landscape Project (Unpublished document). SKE18075.

<2> English Heritage, 2009, Historic Farmsteads: A Manual for Mapping (Unpublished document). SKE18076.

<3> RAF, 1953, NMR RAF/82/713 0504 06-FEB-1953 (Photograph). SKE57183.

<4> Ordinance Survey, 1879, Ordnance Survey: Kent Epoch 1, 1:2500 1879 (Map). SKE55861.