Monument record TR 15 NE 1337 - Campanile Mound, St. Augustine's Abbey

South of the church of St. Pancras, and on a mound in the south-eastern part of the lay cemetery that is still visible, is the site of the bell-tower. Excavations on the site in 1964 uncovered the dwarf foundations of what was probably a timber-framed bell-tower. This tower, which may be similar to the one surviving timber-framed bell-tower in Kent, at the Abbey's Parish church at Brookland, in Walland Marsh, was perhaps superseded in the later Middle Ages by the towers on the Abbey church (as happened at Canterbury Cathedral). However, Thomas of Ickham, the sacrist, donated a whole series of bells at the end of the 14th century, which were stated to have been for: 'the tower above the choir' (the church's central tower), 'the tower at the entrance to the church' (that is, the south-west tower) as well as for the 'bell-tower', and this may suggest a continued use of the detached belfry.

Gem, R., 1997, St. Augustine's Abbey Canterbury, English Heritage (Monograph). SKE30335.