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Summary

Kent's cavern

Location

Protected Status

• Scheduled Monument 1010745: Kent's Cavern, Torquay

Other References/Statuses

• Torbay HER: MTO9718

Monument Type(s) and Dates

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

Full description

Torbay HER record (SMR record). SDV361984.

Imported from Torbay HER

Pengelly, W., 1884, Transactions of the Devonshire Association, p.365-75, 418-420 (Article in Serial). SDV362708.

Clinnick's Gallery.

From the discarded material of the 1846 excavations seven teeth of bear, one of fox, and thirteen lumps of coprolite were found.

The cave earth yielded eight teeth of hyena, two of fox, bone, and the following specimens of flint and chert:-
1. A large chert implement, broken by a workman's tool, was found with a hyena's tooth in the first foot-level.

2. A small white flint flake, nearly flat on one face but strongly ridged near the margin on the other was blunt at the ends, and reduced to a thin edge everywhere else. Semi-circularin form it was found in May 1874 in the first foot-level.

Numerous bones and 86 bear teeth were found in the breccia, along with the following skull and flint and chert specimens:-
1. A large portion of a skull found with bear teeth and some bones.

2. A pinkish drab flake of chert pentagonal in form, and an efficient scrape, was found in the fourth foot-level.

3. A pinkish drab flake of chert, with a bulb of percussion on its inner face, was concave in both directions, while the outer face was convex retaining the original surface of the nodule on about one third of its length. It was unused and was found with three bear teeth in April 1874 in the first foot-level.

4. An irregular pentagonal chert, nearly flat on one face showing the bulb of percussion was convex on the other. Several flakes had been dislodged leaving conchoidal facets; well-used it had been reduced to a thin edge along each of its sides except one. It was found in May 1874 with bone fragments in the fourth foot-level.

5. A rough irregular flake found with a bear tooth and fragments in the fourth foot-level in July 1874.

6. A small chert implement, probably rolled, very convex on one face, only slightly so on the other, with a portion of the original surface retained near the butt end. It was rudely quadrilateral in form with the angles rounded off; several flakes had been struck off each face; the surface was covered with almost black, probably magnetic, smut. A slight chip showed it to consist of light coloured granular chert: several lines, betokening planes of structural weakness or perhaps of fracture, entirely surrounded it. It was found in a small recess in the wall just within the wider entrance of the gallery in the fourth foot-level with a bear's tooth and bone fragments in April 1874. Mammal bones were found in and attached to the upper surface of the granular stalagmitic floor. In the breccia, three lions teeth in portions of a left lower jaw were found. Seven specimens of flint and chert were found during the resumed excavation.

7. An irregular tongue-shaped tool. Was of a gamboge colour externally, reduced to an edge all round the circumference except at the butt end but slightly concave on the inner face; a bulb of percussion was well developed near the butt end, and very convex on the outer face, whence several flakes and chips had been dislodged. It was found in August 1874 in the third foot-level and had been broken into three pieces by a workman.


Excavation resumed in 1879 in the breccia in which a small fragment of a bear's jaw, a few teeth splinters and two chert nodule tools were found:
1. A drab-coloured chert nodule covered with manganic smut, trapezium-shaped with the angles rounded; the butt end was almost square tapering on each face to an oblique chisel-edge; it may have been slightly rolled. It was found alone in the third foot-level in July 1879.

2. A pear-shaped chert nodule, broken by a workman with a white chalk-like aspect at the fracture; the surface was covered with manganic smut. Iit was found alone in the second foot-level in July 1879.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events: none recorded

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