Oldbury

Oldbury Camp

Oldbury Camp Earthwork. National Trust. Against the Belgic Invaders. Recent excavations have revealed earthwork defences surrounding a hill-fort of the Early Iron Age

Caves. Rock shelters. These alleged Palaeolithic rock shelters are natural cavities in sandstone are more extensive than was originally apparent.  The shelters are natural overhangs though they might have been enlarged by prehistoric man. They occur in the Lower Greensands in a rock akin to Tunbridge Wells sandstone. An excavation was commenced by the well-known Kentish palaeontologist Benjamin Harrison on 4.8.1890.   After a few 'false starts he was lucky at one point where he excavated an area of " 10 rods" to a depth of 3 ft. and located 49 worked flint implements and 648 waste chips of flint.   These went to the British Museum and Maidstone museum. They were said to be comparable to flints from Le Moustler in France. If this is correct then this is one of the few cave dwelling, sites in Britain the only one to date in Kent. The quarrying of the edges of the shelters and the filling of their interiors with an accumulation of debris makes them much smaller than they were once.   They now appear as a series of some eight low crawls.   Maximum length 20 ft.   Local people who remember the site before quarrying took place said that one cave used to be from 14 to 20 yards long. Harrison was a self taught village shopkeeper who worked out how man worked flints were to be found in river beds – something revolutionary in importance.