Kent's most CURIOUS MONUMENTS

Our county can boast some of the most celebrated and downright unusual protected mouments in the country

- Jack Watkins

In the second half of the 19th century, the idea of giving Britain’s finest monuments special protection was gathering increasing support. Drawing up legislation was not easy, however. Many ancient archaeological sites were in the hands of landed individuals, some sitting in parliament.

Fierce debates raged in which it was argued that to include such places in a schedule of ancient monuments amounted to state interference on private property.

‘Kit’s Coty House, somewhat surprisingly, was the first site to be taken into guardianship’

Finally, the Ancient Monuments Act was passed in 1882. Anyone guilty of damaging a monument was to be fined £5 and the post of inspector of ancient monuments, a position which still exists today, was created to oversee and offer advice on monument protection.

The first inspector was General Augustus Pitt Rivers, a distinguished archaeologist, and landowner. His appointment was doubtless partly approved on the basis that it would enable him to gain the confidence of estate owners.

Yet, somewhat surprisingly, it was not any of the great prehistoric sites in Wiltshire such as Stonehenge or Silbury Hill that were the first sites taken into guardianship.

Instead, it was Kit’s Coty House on Blue Bell Hill, on the North Downs northwest of Maidstone, that was to gain that honor in August 1883. It had been offered to Pitt Rivers by its owner the MP Henry Brassey, along with its nearby sister monument Little Kit’s Coty house.