Selling Perry Wood

Description

Mound which has been suggested as site of motte but King writes most likely a millstead.

An earthwork around Shottenden Mill, 0.75 miles south of Selling, was surveyed in 1878 by Petrie whose plan bears a resemblance to the O.S. 6" survey of 1955 and shows a sub-rectangular earthwork consisting of a ditch between two banks round the top of a hill. Crawford noted that the windmill had vanished when he visited the site (O G S Crawford 10 5 1925). The greater part of this earthwork is totally obscured by fir trees. The feature where accessible on the S.E. side is reduced to a terrace on the hillside. Turning northwards it develops into a medial ditch with low banks. There is no trace of the windmill (F1 ASP 24-MAY-63). A windmill standing on Shottenden Hill was formerly a well-known landmark. A telegraph station, sometimes known as Old Wives' Lees, part of the Deal line of the Admiralty Shutter telegraph system c. 1796, was also sited on the hill. A letter to the Gentleman's Magazine in 1796 described the situation of the telegraph station and added that the Romans used the hill as an encampment. He included sketches of the site showing the Roman ditch around the land containing the windmill and the telegraph (Wilson). (PastScape)

the plain remains of an antient camp, the intrenchments of which inclose about an acre and three-quarters of ground. (Hasted)

Selling: Perry Wood. A ' camp ' hill is mentioned in Petrie's list, and local tradition recalls it, but now the only earthwork visible in this wood is a circular mount with slight fosse round, very like the work at Wouldham, the mount rising 12 to 15 ft. in height. In old time it may have been a small, defended look-out, as it is in a position suited for the purpose, but in modern days has been converted into what is locally known as the ' Pulpit,' by the erection of a wooden structure on its summit. (VCH)

Comments

Clearly not a manorial centre but also earthworks of something more than a mill. Hasted was writing before the construction of the Admiralty station so the earthwork predates that. The earthworks may have been damaged by that construction and the description in the VCH is significantly different from Hasted's of only a 150 or so years before (It may be that the VCH is describing another, nearby site). Hasted called it a Roman summer camp but a more probably origin is an Iron Age enclosure. Medieval origin can be dismissed and medieval use seems unlikely.