Tag: kent

Kent’s Standing Stones

On By Mick CanningIn archaeology, folklore, kent, standing stones29 Comments

Although not perhaps the first county one would think of when discussing ancient standing stones, Kent does have its share. There are two main sites approximately equidistant on either side of the river Medway in north Kent. The eastern site consists of the remains of two burial chambers (Kit’s Coty House and Little Kit’s Coty House) and the White Horse Stone, all within a kilometre of each other, while the western site consists of the Coldrum Stones (burial chamber) and Addington Long Barrow and Addington Burial Chamber.

The Coldrum Stones

At Little Kit’s Coty House in a light drizzle, I counted seventeen stones, although Donald Maxwell writing in The Pilgrim’s Way in Kent, a short guide published in 1932, claims twelve to fourteen. Various other authorities suggest between nineteen and twenty-one. This is one of those sets of remains that comprise such a jumble of stones it is supposedly impossible to accurately count them – and just to make it harder, they are also supposed to move around (presumably when no one is looking). Thus they are also known by the name The Countless Stones. The largest ones I reckoned were about four meters by two and about three and a half meters by three. The shapes are very irregular, and since they are in a collapsed state there might have been serious damage to some of them. I immediately wondered whether it had originally been the same shape as Kit’s Coty House, a Neolithic chambered long barrow, just a few hundred meters to the north, where the stones are in the form of a dolmen, which would have been a burial chamber at one end of an eighty-four meter mound.

The Countless Stones, or Little Kit’s Coty House

William Stukeley, writing in 1722, recorded that he was told local people remembered a chamber at Little Kit’s Coty House. It had had a covering stone and was pulled down in about 1690.

Both Kit’s Coty House and Little Kit’s Coty House are reckoned to be just under six thousand years old.

Kit’s Coty House

Some nine or ten kilometres away across the Medway Valley are the Coldrum Stones, or Coldrum Long Barrow, dated to between 3985 and 3855 BC. These ones, looked after by the National Trust, are also a burial chamber. Donald Maxwell claimed that there were forty-one stones and that a further fifteen were broken up at an unspecified date during quarrying work. Maxwell also reported a tradition ‘amongst the country people’ that an avenue of stones stretched across the valley from Coldrum to Kit’s Coty, although there is no evidence it ever existed. But coincidence or not, both of these chambers are situated at the same height, about eighty five meters above sea level.

All three burial chambers, then, have been dated to the same period, a thousand years before Stonehenge was built. It seems reasonable, then, to assume they were produced by the same society.

Coldrum has been proved to be a family tomb, the remains of at least 22 people being interred there, with DNA analysis proving their likely close family relationship. Yet amongst these kinsfolk, recent isotopic analysis has shown that maybe the chamber also contained the remains of individuals interred in the fifth to seventh centuries AD.

The White Horse Stone

I say maybe, as there is a very strong caveat connected to this research, and that is that when the human remains were removed in the early twentieth century they were not only not labelled very thoroughly, but they were also passed around several museums and the possibility exists that some bones ended up mis-accredited. Yet it has been proven that some neolithic burial chambers were re-used for burials in the early Anglo-Saxon period.*

The land here has been sculpted by man. Of course, we sculpt the land more and more violently and obviously in the twenty first century, but here, from all these thousands of years ago, are these simple shapes built by ancient folk to inter and celebrate their dead. And these were interactive places. Evidence from other sites shows that some of the bones of these ancestors would be removed at times, although whether as a simple reminder of their elders, or whether for magic or sacred purposes, can only be conjecture. But I like the thought that these bones might be invested with power, that they could be brought into the everyday for protective or ritual purpose.

Now, we view them in a different light, and their sacredness has evaporated. Like a deconsecrated church, but without ever having been formally deconsecrated. It is possible our ancestors would view our visits there as desecration.

But I’m never sure whether you can take any arrangement of stones for granted; they’ve been dismantled in the past, could they have been reassembled?

Incidentally, for those who enjoy Ley Lines, it is worth mentioning that the Ley Line hunter Paul Devereux has described a line passing through The Coldrum Stones and aligning with six nearby churches. Although just to put a dampener on that, perhaps it is also worth mentioning that students at Cambridge University investigated this particular line using computer simulations based on the Ordnance Survey details and concluded that it wasn’t statistically significant – that it was almost certainly just a chance alignment. You takes your pick.

*Research carried out by members of Durham University, Oxford University School of Archaeology and British Geological Survey (Isotope Facility) 2022

A Jolly Wassail and the Howlers (and not forgetting the Hoodeners!)

On By Mick CanningIn animal guising, culture, customs, Folk traditions, folklore, history, Hooden Horse, Hoodening, kent, Wassailing34 Comments

Yesterday, we went Wassailing.

If you care to Google (other search engines are available) Wassailing, you will learn it traditionally takes place on the Twelfth Night (after Christmas), i.e. 5th January, and is a British custom. You will also discover that wassailing involves groups (traditionally men) visiting apple orchards, usually after dark, and to encourage the trees to be especially fruitful the following year songs are sung, trees might be beaten with sticks to wake them up, and offerings of bread soaked cider left in the branches of certain trees. Perhaps one particular tree would be selected to represent the whole orchard.

A Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect published in 1875 has something to say on the subject. It defines howlers as ‘boys who in former times went round wassailing the orchards. A custom now nearly obsolete. The custom of wassailing used to be observed on the eve of the Epiphany, when the howlers went to the orchards, and there encircling one of the best bearing trees, drank the following toast,-

‘Here’s a health to thee, old apple tree,

May’st thou bud, may’st thou blow,

May’st thou bear apples enow!

Hats full! Caps full!

Bushel, bushel, sacks full!

And my pockets full, too! Huzza!

The wassailers derived their name from the Anglo-Saxon salutation on pledging one to drink, which was waes hael, be of health; to which the person pledged replied drinc hael, I drink your health.‘

Epiphany occurs usually on 6th January, or on the first Sunday falling between 2nd and 8th January, which tends to tie in roughly with Twelfth Night, at least as far as 6th January goes.

Groups of wassailers might also take the opportunity to go from door to door singing wassailing songs (like the one above and plentiful variations) to earn a penny or two. It is possible that the tradition of Christmas carolling derived from this. A wassail bowl was often also taken around, which would hold spicy mulled cider. This might perhaps also be offered at houses visited, although my copy of the 1849 Chambers Dictionary suggests a wassail bowl was used to drink in the New Year and does not mention anything about wassailing itself. I suppose this might represent a sort of official disapproval of the tradition. But it does confirm that drinking was involved, and I’ve no doubt the revellers enjoyed their share.

Howlers would appear to be a Sussex tradition, the name deriving from the boys ‘howling’ the orchard.

Away from the south of England, wassailing appears to have been more widespread, in the sense that not just apple orchards, but also bees might be wassailed, to encourage them to be productive, and it might also happen at other times of the year.

It being 6th January, we took a bus and a couple of trains and made our way to the village of Worth, just outside Sandwich, in East Kent, to not only join in with wassailing apple orchards but also watch some Hooden Horse antics. Hooden Horses you shriek in confusion? Look no further than this post, which even explains why we chose to go to East Kent.

Anyway, ale was drunk in the pub where we began the afternoon, with the Hooden Horse company performing their version of the traditional play – this particular company have recently revived the custom in this area – before we set off (horse and all) to wassail a nearby orchard on our way into Sandwich. In this case, the wassailing consisted of making plenty of noise as we passed the orchard – many a shout of waes hael and drinc hael, ringing of hand bells, and clashing of sticks. Personally, I am convinced there will be a bountiful harvest there next autumn. Then on to Sandwich for further Hooden Horse Hi-jinks (and further ale) in a welcoming taproom, before we made our way back home (since we had quite a long journey), although hardier folk than us went on for further malarky elsewhere in town.

Warning! Do not let this ‘doctor’ anywhere near your loved ones!

Gathering in the pub car park before the Wassailing walk

In the taproom, Sandwich

  • several of these photos courtesy of Sabina

We’ll just have to look out for another malarky opportunity soon, I guess.

At The Hop

On By Mick CanningIn farming, hops, kent, tradition21 Comments

I was talking about hop pockets and pokes last week – and pigs, of course, which was how it all started, but forget the pigs for now. Let’s stick with the pokes and pockets. At the weekend we went for a walk through a part of Kent we hadn’t walked for a few years and part of the walk took us through this field:

This was a hop garden many years ago. Conveniently close to the oast houses so that as soon as the hops were picked they could be taken in and dried before there was any chance of them spoiling. Taken in bagged up in pokes, and once dried shipped out to the brewers in pockets. A word of explanation for those not familiar with these terms: hops are not grown in fields, they are grown in gardens. Not like your or my back garden, but like a field. But a field full of poles. Hop poles. With huge cable-like wires strung between them to support the hop bines as they grow.

When they are ready for harvesting, the bines are pulled down and the hops picked and put in pokes – large sacks (but you knew that, of course. You remembered it from last week). Then once dried they are shovelled into pockets – another size of sack.

And what are the hops for? Making beer, my friend. Lovely beer.

I don’t have a picture of the hop garden from back then, but late one cold, misty, autumn night about thirty years ago, I walked through it and the eeriness was instantly imprinted on me and once I was home I felt compelled to make an oil pastel painting of it (below).

Anyway, as I said I don’t have a photo of the hop garden in question, but this one from Pixabay illustrates very nicely the hop poles and wires with the growing hop bines growing up and across them:

Image by -Rita-👩‍🍳 und 📷 mit ❤ from Pixabay

The poles were supported by wires kept under tension, anchored into the ground around the edge of the garden. Quite a few of these are still in situ around the very edge of the field and just into the woodland and hedgerows bordering it.

In 1872, there were 72,000 acres of land in England growing hops, the majority of these being in Kent, employing over 100,000 seasonal workers at picking time. By 2003, the acreage in Kent was down to just over 1,000 and for the first time ever the county had been overtaken by Herefordshire, which now grew more, although the decline does at least appear to have halted for now. In 2011 there were a total of just over 2,500 acres under cultivation in England but it is such a small number there were fears the industry could die out. Although hops are still used in beer brewing, much of the requirement is imported, especially with a popular shift towards less bitter-tasting beers. But in much the same way that Kent has also lost a huge percentage of its apple orchards, a once rich and diverse farming landscape has become more and more homogenised, with endless huge fields of arable crops and sheep and cattle replacing the hop bines and apple trees.

I spent one autumn apple picking around thirty years ago and the farm I was working on had a large acreage of hop gardens (both apples and hops all sadly gone, now). It was an incredibly busy and bustling time, with our diverse group apple picking – a mixture of locals and Europeans come over for the work – and a traditional mix of workers in the hop gardens; as well as locals, there were a lot of gypsies and possibly still a few people down from London’s East End, which was a traditional way for those workers to make some extra money in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was busy, noisy, very hard work, and a lot of fun.

And, not surprisingly, there are a number of traditional songs about hop picking. So here is the wonderful Shirley Collins and the Albion Dance Band to perform ‘Hopping down in Kent’ especially for you.

Apocalypse Deferred Just A Tiny Little Bit

On By Mick CanningIn kent, sussex, walking, Weald37 Comments

Yesterday, I went for a walk around parts of Sussex and Kent. The sun shone – Hooray! I managed the whole walk without aching too much afterwards – Hooray again! I said good morning to some sheep and patted a very nice horse. I just knew it was going to be a Good Day.

At one point I went along a footpath I haven’t used for several years, and was delighted to see this:

And then another four miles or so later there was this:

The council have made this area a Designated Roadside Nature Reserve. Established for several years now, it has a rich variety of wildflowers and grasses, and is fairly humming with insect life.

Perhaps there is a little hope for us, after all.

The Weald of Kent and Sussex

On By Mick CanningIn photo essay, photographs, travel, UK30 Comments

South East England is my area. It is where I was raised and, other than a few years spent abroad, it is where I have lived my whole life. In particular, the Weald and the Downs. Not so much the coastline, which has never particularly attracted me, but the hills and valleys, the woodlands and rabbits, the hidden crags and open downland, the land of streams and foxes and badgers, birds and villages and butterflies.

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On the Sussex Downs

There is a curious fact about the wooded areas of South east England, which is that there is more woodland, covering a greater area now, than was the case four hundred years ago.

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Back then, South East England was the industrial heartland of Britain. This was before the discovery of the coal seams of the North and the Midlands, and the various factors which would eventually lead to the greatest impact of the Industrial revolution being in those areas.  Instead, the modest iron deposits of the Weald were mined and worked into firedogs and nails, cannon and cooking pans, as the wealth of words such as hammer and forge in place names still bear witness.

 

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Huge numbers of trees were cut down to feed the fires of these forges, and huge numbers also for charcoal burning, for building, and near the coast the great Kent and Sussex oaks were in huge demand to build the large number of ships the navy demanded. But then from the mid eighteenth century onwards, industry began to shift northwards.

Despite the pressures on the land for building and for farming in this crowded corner of our crowded island, there is actually more woodland now than there was during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. And that is not something that can be said of many parts of Britain or, I suspect, many parts of the world at all.

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The Weald is an area whose underlying rocks are sandstone and clay, which means that the unimproved soils are inevitably either light and sandy or thick and claggy. In some parts there are old sunken tracks known as ‘Summer Roads’, so-called because they became impassable in the winter months, when they might have had a foot or more of thick, wet, muddy, clay on their surface. When these were in use, journeys between villages that might take an hour or two in summer, could became almost impossibly long during the winter.

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At the moment, all everything in the news seems depressing and unpleasant and so, this post is an indulgence. Just a smattering of information, and a few photos of places I love, largely to improve my mood.