Cheesemans Camp

Description

A large earthwork enclosure at Cheeseman's Farm has been identified as a possible medieval house site or a Romano-British enclosure. Approximately 50m across, the feature is surrounded by a dry ditch. There is also a causeway entrance on the west side. No structural remains have been found at the site, and pottery sherds removed from the vicinity date to the Roman period. Romano-British cremation burials have also been found in close proximity to this enclosure. The site is also recorded as an 'ancient earthwork' on the Ordnance Survey historic maps. Despite this, the general appearance and size of the enclosure and its close proximity to a no longer surviving similar feature that dated to the medieval period, is taken as evidence that this was once the site of a medieval house. (Kent HER)

The enclosure on the Minster side of the boundary at Cheeseman's Farm, known at Cheeseman's Camp, looks like a homestead moat. Hasted's map shows a similar feature on the opposite side of the road as does a map of 1769. The earlier name of the places seems to have been Cheesmunds (VCH, Hasted, Andrews). Cheeseman's Camp is a subrectangular enclosure measuring some 50.0m NW-SE by 40.0m NE-SW surrounded by a dry ditch 3.5m in width and 0.7m in depth. The enclosed area is generally on a level with the surrounding ground but it is slightly sunken at the W. end; entrance is by a causeway across the ditch on the W. side. This is neither a homestead moat nor a defensive earthwork. Although no building debris is visible the general appearance and proportions of the work and the evident close proximity of a similar feature of which there is now no trace, support Crawford's suggestion that this is the site of a medieval house (F1 CFW 01-OCT-63). Earthwork consists of a sub-rectangular enclosure formed by ditches and banks. It is generally thought to be medieval, but the pottery scatter is of Romano British fabrics only. Romano-British cremation burials have been found nearby. At the time of writing (1988) the ditches were being infilled so that the site could be ploughed (Isle of Thanet Archaeological Unit). (PastScape)

Comments

Very little now seems to survive of a site never well described. Although this may have been a house site, it does not seem to have been a manorial site. Almost certainly not a fortified site in any meaningful sense.