How the 'ankle-breaker' was found

The Kent Archaeological Field School (KAFS), run by local archaeologist Paul Wilkinson, has been excavating on the Syndale site for four years. One of the founders of the school, Doug Bailes, was the first to discover what were thought to be the remnants of one of the first Roman forts in Britain, dating back to the Claudian invasion of 43 AD.

'Around four years ago, one of the projects that the Field School undertook was to try to find a suspected Roman fort on this site, together with any ancillary buildings,' says Doug. 'We put in several excavation trenches to try to determine where a military enclosure ditch could be.

'I spent around a week excavating what turned out to be a military ditch complete with an 'ankle-breaker' at the bottom. That's a deep slot designed to catch people's feet if they jump in. All the way through the excavation I didn't find anything to date the ditch, but then, right in the bottom, I found two pieces of Claudian pottery, which safely dated the ditch to an early period. It was then that we started to think that we could be looking at a fort or marching camp here.'

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