Lullingstone Roman Villa and the Darent Valley
An aerial view of East Hill, Dartford. This shows a modern built up area with small areas of green space, including a cemetery.

East Hill Dartford Cemetery

This large cemetery was probably used by people living in the Dartford settlement in Roman times. A grocer called Thomas Brandon discovered the cemetery in one of his fields in 1792. He asked his workers to dig under the hedges in East Hill Field to find out why one hedge was growing more slowly than the others. They found a sarcophagus (a stone coffin) with a human skeleton inside.

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Rectangular excavation trench with several rectangular graves with rounded edges inside.
Graves at East Hill Cemetery, Dartford.
© Kent Archaeological Society

What do we know about the cemetery?

The cemetery has been excavated many times since it was first discovered in 1792. More than 330 graves have been found here.

Archaeologists think that the cemetery dates from the late 2nd century AD because they haven't found many cremation burials. From the 2nd century AD onwards it was more usual for people in southern Britain to be buried after death rather than cremated. They also found pottery from the 3rd and 4th century AD in some of the graves and a coin showing Constantine I (AD 308-337) in one of the stone coffins. This means that the cemetery was probably still being used in the 3rd and 4th centuries.

A street map showing East Hill running horizontally. The cemetery sits to the north of the road.
© CC-BY NLS reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

Where is the cemetery?

The East Hill Dartford Cemetery sits on top of a slope overlooking the Darent Valley. Like most Roman cemeteries, it was next to a road outside the town walls. The Romans might have buried their dead outside towns to stop diseases from spreading.

The cemetery is just south of Roman Watling Street, a major Roman road, which was probably linked to the large Romano-British settlement at Dartford. It’s most likely that the people buried at East Hill lived in this community. 

Evidence from the Cemetery

Click on the images below to find out more about objects and features found at East Hill Cemetery.

A black and white line drawing of two long metal nails and one short metal nail.

Metal Nails

Metal Nails

Although materials like wood don’t often survive underground, metals like iron usually do. Iron nails found at East Hill Cemetery are the only evidence we have of the coffins that were buried there during Roman times. One of the graves also contained 64 hobnails from leather shoes or boots. These metal objects were found by archaeologists in 1974.

 

© Kent Archaeological Society



A black and white image of a spherical ceramic pot.

Pottery

Pottery

This is a globular (spherical) Roman jar that was placed at the side of a grave in the cemetery. The two holes in the side of the jar were made after the pot was made. They could have been used as a kind of timer or in cooking food. It would have been difficult to make these kinds of holes without damaging the pot.

 

© Wessex Archaeology



A black and white grave plan showing rectangular and oval graves found in the East Hill Cemetery in the 1970s.

Grave Plans

Grave Plans

The graves that archaeologists found in the 1970s were mostly oval-shaped or rectangular with rounded edges. They were different sizes and depths - from 0.25m to 3m long and from 0.11m to 1.68m deep. The graves found were both adult-sized and child-sized which tells us that members of the local community were being buried there. 

 

© Wessex Archaeology



Sarcophagus

Sarcophagus

This small rectangular sarcophagus (stone coffin) is made of limestone and has no decorations. Its small size means that it was probably made for a child of about 5 years old. The lid was missing when archaeologists excavated in 1973 but there was evidence of the lead fixings that would have held it in place. It’s possible that the things inside the sarcophagus were removed when it was first uncovered, probably when East Hill House was built.

 

© Kent Archaeological Society