6 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
chambers is well known — the tomb. It is a commodious 
chamber,^ 12 feet 3 inches in length, east to west, and 
5 feet 8 inches in width, from north to south. When 
Mr Lewis first saw the central chamber, a great vertical 
slab divided it into an eastern and western half, each 
half long enough to provide a wide bed for a six-foot 
man. The flat massive stone which forms the southern 
wall of the chamber shows that the Neolithic men of 
Kent were engineers of no mean ability. It stands 
7 feet 3 inches high, is 1 1 feet 3 inches long and i foot 
9 inches thick — thus weighing many tons. That mass 
the men who lived in pit-dwellings transported and 
set up on this elevated spot. Three other vertical 
stones make up the northern and western walls. No 
covering or roofing stone is now present ; the chamber 
lies open to the sky. On the opposite or eastern 
side of the Medway valley, another Megalithic monu- 
ment — Kits Coty house — retains the great roofing stone 
(fig. ioa). 
The central chamber is only part of the Coldrum 
monument ; as Mr Filkins' plan shows, an irregular 
series of blocks surround the central chamber, enclosing 
a space, now overgrown with weeds and bushes, about 
50 feet square. The monument was evidently set 
within and formed part of the eastern side of this square. 
In its original state the central chamber was probably 
roofed, the encircling stones formed the retaining wall 
of a great mound which covered the tomb, the entrance 
being from the eastern side (fig. 9). Whatever its 
exact original form may have been, this at least is certain : 
the minds of those ancient inhabitants of Kent must 
have been deeply moved by a faith in things unseen and 
of a human existence untrammelled by the flesh. 
On April i6th, 19 10, Mr Bennett visited the central 
chamber. In the Megalithic monument at Addington, 
about a mile due south of Coldrum, he had picked up 
Neolithic flakes ; he was now searching for similar traces 
^ For a detailed description, see Mr Bennett's paper, Journ. Roy. 
Anthrop. Institute, iQ'Sj vol. xliii. p. 76. 
