A HISTORY OF KENT 



All Hallow's, Hoo, and the Isle of Harty : a sickle at Marden : celts 



at All Hallow's, Hoo ; Canterbury ; 



Bronze Knife from Isle of Harty. 



Dover ; Minster (Thanet) ; 

 Sittingbourne ; Watering- 

 bury ; and Wye : pal- 

 staves at All Hallow's, 

 Hoo ; Ashford ; Blean ; 

 Buckland (near Dover) ; 

 Chatham, etc. ; whilst skin- 

 ning-knives, pins, rings, 

 and numerous other mis- 



from Marden and the more 



cellaneous objects, have been recorded 

 important bronze hoards in the county. 



Hoards of bronze, comprising rough masses of metal, or old, 

 broken or worn-out implements, are of the highest archaeological 

 value, because they furnish important evidence as to the working of 

 metal in prehistoric times, and help to indicate the extent and direction 

 of trading operations, the purposes and uses of the tools and implements 

 of man in the Bronze Age, and other equally interesting subjects. 



Kent has furnished six or seven examples of hoards of this kind, 

 some of them being remarkable for their numerous and varied contents. 

 The following are succinct particulars of the more important Kentish 

 hoards : — 



All Hallow's, Hoo. In 1873 some agricultural labourers found at Home Wood Farm 

 a hoard containing eighteen objects, mainly socketed and looped celts, a knife, a sword-hilt, 

 and a very rare form of skinning knife, and composed, according to the account given by Mr. 

 Humphrey Wickham,i of pure copper. Lumps of metal weighing nearly 8 lb. were found 

 with the implements. 



Another hoard was discovered in 1875 about 3 ft. below the surface of the ground at 

 Little Coombe Farm,^ on the border of the parishes of All Hallow's and St. Mary, also in the 

 Hundred of Hoo. It consisted of twenty-seven objects mostly in the form of broken socketed 



Sword-hilt (damaged) found at All 

 Hallow's, Hoo. 



Knife found at All Hallow's, 

 Hoo. 



celts. These articles, weighing in all 7J lb., were accompanied by lumps of unmanufactured 

 metal of about an equal weight. The implements, as in the case of the earlier find, are said 

 to have been composed of pure copper. 



Ebbs Fleet, Minster, Thanet. A bronze hoard of great importance was found here 

 in January 1893.' It contained upwards of 190 separate implements, and fragments of 

 bronze, and weighed 160 lb. or more. The chief contents were portions of dagger, swords, 

 and celts, and perfect examples of socketed celts, palstaves, spear-heads, sickle, hammer, and 



» Arch. Cant. xi. 124-5. » Op. cit. 123-4. 



^ Ptoc. Soc. Antiq. (ser. 2) xiv. 309-11, and xv. 138. 

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