VM_365 Day 79: Anglo Saxon Cemetery at Half Mile Ride, Margate

VM 79
Perkins’ plan from Arch. Cant. CIV.

One of the sites recorded by Dr. Arthur Rowe was an Anglo Saxon cemetery loctaed at Half Mile Ride off Manston Road, Margate. In 1922 he was called to examine human remains that had been found during road improvements, next to the ancient track which was known as Half Mile Ride. Burials had already been uncovered nearby in 1848 and a further nine burials were exposed when the road gradient was reduced in 1863, another burial was exposed in 1893.

Rowe recorded 20 more graves in 1922  and from the paucity of grave goods he found, he suggested that these burials represented a small and early community that was somewhat impoverished. The finds from the graves, along with a buckle found near the cemetery wall in 1924, were included in the Rowe bequest and were stored in the Margate Museum.

Buckle found near the cemetery wall in 1924
Buckle found near the cemetery wall in 1924

In the mid 1980’s the late Dr David Perkins, former  Director of the Trust for Thanet Archaeology, reviewed the Half Mile Ride archive and using data which was not available to Rowe at the time, concluded that the burials were actually part of a larger cemetery, dating to the late sixth to seventh century which extended along the brow of the hill (hatched in the plan above). Rather than an impoverished community, Dr Perkins suggested that from the descriptions in Rowe’s notes, the graves he had encountered had in fact been robbed of their valuable grave goods in antiquity. A similar pattern  of grave robbing seems to occurred in cemeteries of a similar date on Thanet at Sarre and Ozengell that were investigated by Dr. Perkins.

References

Perkins, D. R. J. 1987. The Jutish Cemetery at Half Mile Ride, Margate: A Re-Appraisal. Archaeologia Cantiana CIV, 219-236.

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