THIS IS FINDON — www.findonvillage.com  created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

DIGGING ON CHURCH HILL

OS Ref: TQ 112 083
Longitude: 0° 25' 11.02" W
Latitude: 50° 51' 46.46" N

Copyright Valerie Martin 2003

In November 1945, John Pull resumed digging on the windswept Church Hill — aided again with a group of enthusiastic assistants from the Worthing Archaeological Society and the Brighton and Hove body.  

A well marked depression on the hillside showed the position of a largish infilled shaft and from now it became known as Mine Shaft 4.  Clearing the shaft took two long and exhausting years.   In the process the diggers came across a Neolithic flint workshop floor and also fragments of Roman pottery and shells of the Roman snail, Helix aspersa.

These "digs" rarely do not come up trumps.   Interesting finds were made in various layers of Mine Shaft 4.  Among the lower strata of chalk rubble was a red deer's antler fashioned into a heavy mallet —  most likely used by Neolithic workers for the flint knapping industry carried on in the area.

In Mine Shaft 4 were discovered a large sherd of Neolithic pottery and the carbonised remains of a wooden bowl hollowed from black poplar.  Enough was preserved of this to make a reconstruction possible.  The above is a sketch made from the unearthed charred segments of the rim.

At the same level two flint axes were revealed.  Rather interesting ones with a little imagination needed.   The first was the largest woodman's felling axe found on the site.   The other, was very small in comparison and must have been intended for a child's use and could conceivably be classed as a Neolithic toy.    Both appeared to be the workmanship of the same hand.

In the base of a layer of silt, the excavation team unearthed fragments of three Middle Bronze Age urns, (c. 1400 B.C.).   Also an Early Bronze Age beaker and a Neolithic bowl.  What other proof do we need to know that the Findon area has been occupied since earliest times.

When cleared, Mine Shaft 4 proved to be one of the most interesting sites in prehistoric mining.  It was approximately circular and slightly tapering, 16 ft. in diameter at the top and 12 ft. at the bottom.  It had been sunk to a depth of just over 16 ft.

Galleries had been cut from the mine shaft from 3 ft. to 4 ft. in height and from 4-7ft. in width.  They were up to 30 ft. long.  The original excavation had been carried out with picks, levers and punches cut from red deer antlers.  Shovels had been utilised and cleverly constructed from the shoulder blades of oxen. Many of these tools were discovered in the shaft filling or just laying abandoned on the floors of the galleries.

Over the head of the galleries the excavators discovered incomprehensible hieroglyphics cut into the hillside chalk.   This "writing" had been carefully executed for a purpose with antler tools — and shown above.  These it seems were the flint  miners' marks — an unprecedented discovery on Church Hill, or for that matter at the flint mines on the nearby Blackpatch Hill.

Upon completion of the excavations, the flint mines were filled in once more.

Continue if you would like to read about Johns Bronze Age discovery on Church Hill in my article entitled The Hut.

THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — www.findonvillage.com is a continually growing record created by Valerie Martin exclusively for documenting life in Findon.