In 1994 a watching brief was carried out on the pipeline for the Herne Bay Water Treatment works. At Church Lane, Chislet a broken lower palaeolithic Acheulian hand-axe fragment was found in-situ, in fluvial terrace gravel below brickearth, another was reported close by and two other worked flints of the same period were also discovered.

The deposit of natural river gravel at the site relates to one of the ancient Stour terraces. The hand axe was finely worked and dated to the Lower Palaeolithic period (c. 400,000 - 300,000 BP). The report refers to two other pieces of struck flint 'found some distance to the north' that are likely to be of a similar date and says that a second hand-axe has recently been found in the adjacent field but there is no further information about this. (2) (3)

<1> Andrew Hutcheson, 1994, An Interim Report on the Archaeology of the Herne Bay Water Treatment Pipeline (Unpublished document). SKE17453.

<2> Canterbury Archaeological Trust, 1995, The Herne Bay Water Treatment Project: An Assessment of the Archaeological Discoveries
The Herne Bay Water Treatment Project: An Assessment of the Archaeological Discoveries (Unpublished document). SKE17345.

<3> Canterbury Archaeological Trust, 1993, Herne Bay Water Treatment Works Archaeological Assessment Phase 1 (Unpublished document). SKE17242.