Still standing: Medway megaliths
They’re older than the Pyramids and pre-date Stonehenge... yet the Medway Megaliths go blissfully ignored. Steeped in folklore and hemmed by ancient tracks, Kent’s standing stones could be the oldest in Britain.
Older than the pyramids (& quieter).
PICTURE THE SCENE: the sun is setting on a ridge of chalk hills. Virgin forests cascade into the valley below. In a glade, a Neolithic tribe is making its mark on the landscape, heaving a 10-tonne capstone into place, crowning a monument that can be seen for miles around. 6000 years later it’s still there, intriguing walkers who pass it on a now ancient trackway.
Where is it? Well for starters, it’s nowhere near Stonehenge. To find it, you’ve got to look somewhere standing stones are thin on the ground. The megalithic long barrow of Kit’s Coty House belongs to a cluster set around the tidal reaches of the River Medway in Kent. It’s the most easterly group in Britain.
Suffering vandalism and neglect in the millennia since they were raised, archaeologists believe these isolated megaliths may also be Britain’s oldest, dating from between 4000 and 3000 BC – up to 1500 years before work began on Stonehenge. They were built by some of the earliest farmers in Britain, yet for the most part these remarkable stones go unloved and unnoticed.
A few miles east of Kit’s Coty House is Boxley’s 13th-century parish church – a newbuild by comparison. Villages like Boxley sprang up at the foot of the North Downs where water rises from under the chalk. It’s where we (the other chap being
my not-so-very ancient ancestor) are beginning our day trip into Kent’s prehistoric past, following appropriately ancient routes to seek out three of the surviving Medway Megaliths on the east side of the river. From the churchyard, a string of stiles leads upslope to the Pilgrims’ Way.
A country lane today, this ancient thoroughfare existed long before pilgrims travelled to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral. Even the name ‘Pilgrims’ Way’ is relatively new. The route was one of two taken by medieval pilgrims (the other being the Roman road of Watling Street). It follows the course of an ancient trackway furrowed out in prehistoric times, skirting under the chalk escarpment of the North Downs.
Across the Pilgrims’ Way, a narrow, flint-studded path climbs through the packed ranks of beech and oak cloaking the hillside. It may only be a few hundred feet to the top, but the gradient is enough to warm your calf muscles. We meet another ancient trackway running parallel to the Pilgrims’ Way across the crest of the downs. A waymark signs the North Downs Way – the 153-mile
National Trail linking the Surrey Hills to the White Cliffs of Dover – but like the lower road, this high way has prehistoric origins. It formed part of the ‘Old Way’: a route with Neolithic pedigree following the chalk spine of southern England. Known as the Harroway beyond Farnham in Surrey, it looped through the religious complexes of Avebury and Stonehenge to the Devon Coast.
Even in the 21st century, we haven’t deviated far from the tracks grooved out by our prehistoric ancestors. A muffled but constant drone below us, the M20 shadows the downs on its way from London to the Kent coast, joined by the periodic whoosh of trains racing along the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (aka High Speed 1).
Tracing every curve in the chalk, the North Downs Way turns towards a breach in the hills, where the River Medway punches through. Stepping over a sarsen stone , we drop through a shady grove of yews, their spidery limbs clawing at the path. Downhill, the trail converges with the Pilgrims’ Way. It’s here we come to the first of the Medway Megaliths: the White Horse Stone.
A shoulder-height sarsen vaguely resembling a horse, archaeologists speculate it could be a remnant of a long barrow. Evidence of a Neolithic longhouse was unearthed nearby when a cutting for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link was excavated. Its occupants may have been megalith builders and were probably among the first tribes in Britain to adopt agriculture, using flint tools to begin clearing woodland for cattle grazing.
In Kentish folklore the White Horse Stone plays a central role in the county’s founding myth. 50 years after the Romans abandoned Britain (when megaliths were already baffling relics), a Saxon army led by brothers Hengist and Horsa landed in Kent, where they were met in battle at Aylesford by King Vortigern of the Britons and his son Catigern. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells how both sides suffered heavy losses, and after clashing swords in one-on-one combat, Horsa and Catigern died from
“... we haven’t deviated far from the ancient tracks grooved out by our prehistoric ancestors.”
their wounds. Horsa’s body was laid upon the White Horse Stone, his blood staining it red. Some believe this story inspired the flag of Kent – a white horse on a red background.
The victorious Britons allowed the Saxons to settle on the east side of the River Medway, and forever after those born there were called ‘Men of Kent’, while western natives are ‘Kentish Men’.
Today, contemporary druids venerate the White Horse Stone. Until 1823, another sarsen stood nearby – the Lower White Horse Stone – but a local farmer was tired of ploughing around it, so took the extreme measure of smashing it to pieces. Sadly, this fate was not uncommon for megaliths, often destroyed for their stone or pagan connotations. From the 13th century, the church actively encouraged their destruction, and in 1867, one farmer even used explosives to clear his field.
Crossing under the A229, the North Downs Way ducks into a hollow way, where we divert to Lower Kit’s Coty House: a jumble of sarsens also known the ‘Countless Stones’. Probably the remains of a long barrow, they now survive in a half-buried heap. Legend has it that an Aylesford baker tried to count them by placing loaves on each stone, but his efforts were foiled by the Devil, who followed closed behind gathering up the bread. Without the aid of baked props, we made it 19, but it’s possible others may lie underground. The atmosphere is electric (if only because a high voltage power line hums overhead).
The North Downs Way regains the high ground of Blue Bell Hill, where an opening in an unruly hedgerow reveals the surviving megaliths of Kit’s
Coty House. Exactly who ‘Kit’ was and what a ‘Coty’ might be is lost in the mists of time, but some believe ‘Kit’ is Catigern, whose body was laid to rest here after the Battle of Aylesford. It consists of three upright stones propping up a huge capstone. This doorway is all that remains of an earth long barrow that once extended for 80 metres from east to west, ringed by a ‘ kerb’ of sarsens. It opened into chambers where it’s likely human remains and valuable possessions were interred. Archeologists believe such barrows remained important ritual sites for thousands of years after they were built.
Britain was still densely wooded during the Early Neolithic period, but the barrow’s prominent situation meant it could be seen by anyone arriving from downriver. Evidence suggests people travelled between Britain and the continent by boat, and similar monuments in the Lower Rhine region suggest the Medway Megaliths were influenced by the Linear Pottery Culture of Northern France and Belgium (unlike the ‘Severn- Cotswold’ tombs found in the West Country).
From Kit’s Coty House, you can see where further Neolithic barrows are located on the western side of the Medway, near the villages of Trottiscliffe and Addington. Human remains unearthed from the Coldrum Stones and Addington Long Barrow reveal clues about the close-knit Neolithic societies who venerated their dead in communal tombs. Their injuries show violent deaths were not uncommon.
In the 1880s, Kit’s Coty House was among the first ancient monuments protected by parliament ( hence the iron railings enclosing it today). Looking between the bars, we can make out Victorian graffiti gouged into the sandstone.
The Pilgrims’ Way brings us forward in time as we make tracks through Boxley Warren. It was common for medieval pilgrims to detour half a mile south from the road and visit Boxley Abbey. For the right donation, pilgrims could marvel at the miracle of a levitating statue
or wonder at the ‘Rood of Grace’ – a wooden relic depicting Jesus on the cross. It could move, speak and even weep, but unbeknownst to pilgrims, monks hid behind a screen, pulling levers and making messianic voices.
Boxley’s enterprising Cistercians were exposed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, when their money-making contraption was put on display in Maidstone in 1538. All that survives of the abbey today are its outer walls and huge, red-roofed tithe barn, formerly a Hospitium where pilgrims could find a bed for the night.
We finish our walk as pilgrims often did, supping ale in Boxley’s inn – which as its name hints at, was another monastic asset seized by Henry VIII. Dating back to the 15th century, the Kings Arms lends itself to musing on the past. Humbled by ancient tracks and baffled by prehistoric ruins, we’ve scratched at the strata of Britain’s history and reveled in its legends. A sense of mystery endures here and that’s a beautiful thing.