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Summary

Kent's cavern

Location

Protected Status

• Scheduled Monument 1010745: Kent's Cavern, Torquay

Other References/Statuses

• Torbay HER: MTO9706

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• CAVE (Lower Palaeolithic to Roman - 500000 BC to 409 AD)

Full description

Torbay HER record (SMR record). SDV361984.

The South Sally Port.

An area honeycombed with fox holes: ancient and modern bones; unpolished flint implements and rude pottery were all found mixed together. The cave earth was disturbed by burrowing animals; charcoal and a few burnt bones were found plentifully on the surface of the cave earth along with a few marine shells.

Fine specimens of all the common cave animals were found here, with a large number of mammoth teeth. Also ten flint and chert implements found: three on the surface, one in the first foot level, three in the second, two in the third, and one site uncertain.

1.A well-made heart-shaped chert implement found on the surface of the cave earth, beneath an overhanging ledge of limestone on the west side of the sally port was made from a pebble from the supracretaceous gravel of Milber Down. No other implement like it found in the cavern.

2. A fine-grained silver-grey symmetrical canoe-shaped flint; flat on one side, somewhat rounded on the other, worked to an edge all round the margin, and considerably chipped or dressed on both surfaces was found on the cave earth.

3. A coarse white cherty flint, flat on the inner surface, carinated on the outer, not highly finished was found in the second foot level of the undisturbed cave earth.

4. Strongly carinated on the outer face, the inner longitudinally concave and slightly convex transversely has a square tang at one end as if for being hafted. The opposite end was rounded, while the lateral margins were fined off to an edge. Found near the entrance of the sally port in a small mass of cave earth which had slipped off the face of the section.

5. A white flint, lanceolate, from the third foot level of undisturbed cave earth.

6. A white flint, lanceolate missing its point, strongly carinated on one face, slightly concave longitudinally on the other where a crowd of facets indicated the dislodgement of numerous small chips was found in the fourth foot level of cave earth, with teeth of horse and rhinoceros and a coprolite. The best tool of its type found in the cavern.

Further flint implements and flakes were found on continuing the excavation making twenty-one in all including part of a gnawed antler in the third foot level of cave earth.

Evans, J., 1872, Ancient Stone Implements, p.448; fig 388 (Monograph). SDV362712.

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Pengelly, W., 1884, Transactions of the Devonshire Association, p.266-80 (Article in Serial). SDV362708.

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Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events: none recorded

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