Ralph Mills

I dug at Tonge Castle for a couple of summers in the mid 1960s. The excavation, never published, was directed by David Ford, who at the time was a teacher at St John's Secondary School, where my father was Deputy Headmaster. It was my father's suggestion that my brother and I, with not much to do during school holidays, should volunteer on the excavation.

The excavation revealed significant amounts of C13th/C14th domestic pottery and some collapsed shell-gritted mortared flint masonry. Under one slab of masonry I found the skeleton of a moorhen, my careful excavation of which made the local newspaper.

It was an idyllic time. I would cycle to Tonge and back, and spend each day uncovering sherds of 13th century coarse wares. Working at the site infected wme with a love of archaeology of which I have never been entirely cured! The Sittingbourne and Swale Archaeological Research Group also owed its foundation to the dig at Tonge.

To the north of the mound is a large pond, on which lived hundreds of ducks. These supplied eggs to the bakery then in Tonge Mill, a handsome structure that is still much as it was then. At the time there was a tumbledown cottage beside the "castle". It was later demolished and an ugly bungalow built to replace it.

Last updated 6th January 2022