Westenhanger Castle, Stanford, Kent - Integrated Site Report

Abstract

• The site, on land to the north of Westenhanger Castle (centred on OS NGR 612200 137500), was discovered and excavated as part of an extensive programme of archaeological investigations carried out in advance of the construction of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL). CTRL was built by London & Continental Railways Limited in association with Railtrack Group plc. The project was authorised by Parliament with the passage of the CTRL Act, 1996. The high-speed line runs for 109 km (68 miles) between St Pancras station in London and the Channel Tunnel and was built in two sections. Section 1 lies entirely within Kent and runs from Fawkham Junction (Gravesham) to Folkestone. The work was project managed by Rail Link Engineering (RLE).The Canterbury Archaeological Trust was initially commissioned to undertake a detailed archaeological investigation. This excavation followed on from an evaluation carried out by the Museum of London Archaeology Service (MoLAS), and was itself succeeded by a watching brief undertaken by the Oxford Archaeological Unit (OAU). The location of the site is shown on Figure 1 and the details of the archaeological fieldwork events are given in Table 1.