Yesterday the Park held an Open Day and SWAG joined in with displays covering archaeology that we’ve investigated over the past year. This included the clayworks at the Park and the remains of the Roman villa at Hartlip.
Thanks to everyone who helped out to make it a successful day.
Andrew was recently interviewed on the BBC radio Kent show ‘The Wake Up Call’.
Click here to listen – https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p09xt344
If anyone has memories about the Park, and particularly the clay works, we would love to hear from you.
2024 Update:
We recently received some comments on the Archaeology in Kent about the clay works and thought we’d share some with you here:
“We returned to one of our favourite park finds this week, the cart in the tree! It carried London clay from our clay pit, along a narrow gauge railway to be processed. The clay was both slurried & pumped along the A2 and taken by lorry to Northfleet, for use in the cement industry. The pit was worked 24/7 from the 1930s to the 1960s, transforming the landscape at Shorne Woods from wooded hill to worked out quarry. The fishing lakes and visitor centre now sit in the base of the old quarry pit- with 100ft of clay missing above our heads. This cart must have been pushed off the railway and abandoned, with nature taking over and a hornbeam tree growing out of it”
Simon Thornton:
I remember swimming and rafting on the quarry lake back in the early ‘70s long before it became the country park. There was still a lot of machinery, rails and metalwork scattered around back then. I suspect a lot of that is still buried under the park. There were also steep hills/spoil heaps, which must have been flattened when the park was created. Although it was great fun to play in there as a kid, the conversion into the park is a very positive use of the land.
Matt Whiting:
The foundations of the quarry offices can still be found in the park not far from the a2. Still bits of rail to be found in the woods too
Susan Jacobs:
We used to call it the ‘Crystal Quarry’ when I was a youngster back in the early 70’s. We used to dig out loads of quartz from the clay before it was the park. Happy Days. Shorne Shorne Woods Country Park is one of my favourite places.
SWAG and others have been involved with a dig at Greenwich Park, London. Two of the team from Shorne explain some of the archaeological work happening at the site of the Saxon barrow cemetery at the moment:
For more details on the Saxon barrow cemetery click here for the Royal Parks website.
Andrew is now involved with the Royal Parks and will be investigating the Saxon barrow cemetery at Greenwich. Some of the SWAG team will be helping as well. This video has more details:
The clayworks projects at Shorne are coming to an end. We confirmed that the bank carrying our narrow gauge railways has been revetted and reinforced with a series of vertical rails set into the old concrete road. These rails held back a wall of sleepers and timbers, anchored through the bank with metal hawsers. This allowed the diesel locos on site to run along the top of the bank and for an offshott track to run out onto a metal hopper, so that trucks could drive under and take the clay away. Quite elaborate but also built in a very practical fashion.
We are backfilling these holes soon and will continue on finishing our dig on the clayworkers canteen block.
