The material used in these prehistoric monuments is sarsen stone, or greywethers, a species of tough sandstone, which occurs naturally scattered about the surface of certain parts of the North Downs and elsewhere. This stone was also largely used at Stonehenge. As far as the Kentish megalithic structures are concerned, the stone does not seem to have been artificially shaped, except perhaps in one instance, but such blocks as were of suitable size and shape seem to have been selected and brought together. The following are the chief Kentish examples:
Kits Coty House, the best known and the most perfect example of its kind in Kent, stands out boldly on the side of the hill a little below the extensive chalk pit at Blue Bell Hill. It is situated 1½ miles north-east of Aylesford, and on sufficiently high ground to command extensive views over the country lying to the south and the west. The structure consists of four stones arranged in the form of a simple cromlech. Three of the stones are upright and support a large flat cap-stone. The upright stones, which are arranged in an H-shaped plan, are of the following dimensions: — the south-west stone is about 8 ft. high, whilst its breadth at the base is 6 ft. 2 in., and its thickness about I ft. 8 in.; the north-east stone is about 7 ft. high, 6 ft. 8 in. broad, and 2 ft. thick; the middle stone, which is of irregular form, is 6 ft. 10 in. in greatest height. Upon the top of these stones is placed a capstone measuring 12 ft. 10 in. by 9 ft. 3 in., and in some parts it is about 2 ft. thick. The fact that the two main upright stones have an inclination inwards imparts to them great strength and stability, especially as they are prevented from falling inwards by the middle stone or outwards by the enormous weight of the capstone.
The size of the capstone is sufficiently large to project beyond the supporting stones. It is pentagonal in form, and so poised on the upright stones as to slope considerably towards the north-west, a circumstance which was once held by archæologists[1] to point to the probability of its having been a sacrificial altar used by the Druids.
A useful clue to the real object and purpose of Kits Coty House is furnished by the engraved plate of the monument published in 1776 by Dr. Stukeley,[2] in which the stones are represented as standing at the end of a long, low mound. There are also some valuable particulars both of Kits Coty House and Lower Kits Coty House as they appeared in 1732 in a letter from Hercules Ayleway[3] to Dr. Stukeley, as the following extract will show : — ' from the N.W. front of this upper Cotty House are extended a parcell of small stones in the form of branchii, or arms, or arches of circles ; on the N. west side they are doubly rowed, but the S. east arm is either buried or the stones carried away, from the extremitys of which arms I conjecture there has been an avenue, by reason of the many stones I find disposed in or very near a right line, and exactly corresponding with the said arches, which avenue leads to a little farm called Tottendan Place, about 800 yards west of the Cotty House ; it was moated round, and whileome was a place of good strength.'
There is no reason to doubt that Kits Coty House was originally a long barrow enclosing a stone sepulchral chamber of the well-known neolithic type. It seems quite possible also, judging from the foregoing extract from Ayleway's letter, that the barrow was enclosed in a ring of stones. Agricultural operations, rain-wash, and the excavations of treasure-seekers, are sufficient to account for the entire disappearance of the barrow and the circle of stones by which it was surrounded.
The division of the space between the supporting stones by the intervention of the middle upright stone, a circumstance which inclined Dr. Stukeley to the opinion that this could not have been a sepulchral cist, does not really present any serious obstacle to the explanation suggested. It points rather to the conclusion that this was a double cist, a feature which, as will presently be shown, is in harmony with another Kentish example.
In the engraved picture in Dr. Stukeley's Itinerarium Curiosum, already referred to, is shown a point marked ' the General's tomb.' This is clearly distinct from the recumbent monolith, also shown in the engraving lying nearly a mile nearer Aylesford, and popularly
