page_title: Chestnuts Long Barrow
section_title: Antiquarian and archaeological investigation
hierarchical_section_title: Chestnuts Long Barrow / Antiquarian and archaeological investigation
caption_attribution_description: Maidstone Museum, Kent, England.
context_page_description: Chestnuts Long Barrow, also known as Stony Warren or Long Warren, is a chambered long barrow near the village of Addington in the south-eastern English county of Kent. Probably constructed in the fifth millennium BCE, during Britain's Early Neolithic period, today it survives only in a ruined state.
  Archaeologists have established that long barrows were built by pastoralist communities shortly after the introduction of agriculture to Britain from continental Europe. Representing an architectural tradition of long barrow building that was widespread across Neolithic Europe, Chestnuts Long Barrow belongs to a localised regional style of barrows produced in the vicinity of the River Medway. The long barrows built in this area are now known as the Medway Megaliths. Chestnuts Long Barrow lies near to both Addington Long Barrow and Coldrum Long Barrow on the western side of the river. Two further surviving long barrows, Kit's Coty House and Little Kit's Coty House, as well as the destroyed Smythe's Megalith and possible survivals as the Coffin Stone and White Horse Stone, are on the eastern side of the Medway.
context_section_description: Antiquarians have been aware of Chestnuts Long Barrow since the 18th century. The earliest possible reference to the monuments was provided by the antiquarian John Harris in an ambiguous comment in his History of Kent in Five Parts, published in 1719. In 1773, the site was described in print by the antiquarian Josiah Colebrooke in a short article for Archaeologia, the journal of the Society of Antiquaries of London. He described it as one of the "temples of the antient Britons". Colebrook's analysis was echoed in the 18th-century writings of Edward Hasted, W. H. Ireland, and John Thorpe. In the early 1840s, the Reverend Beale Post conducted investigations into the Medway Megaliths, writing them up in a manuscript that was left unpublished; this included Addington Long Barrow and Chestnuts Long Barrow, which he collectively labelled the "Addington Circles".
  In the late 1940s, the site was visited by the archaeologists John H. Evans and Albert Egges van Giffen, with the former commenting that they examined the site in its "overgrown state". In 1953, the archaeologist Leslie Grinsell reported that several small trees and bushes had grown up within the megaliths. That year, the field was prepared for horticultural use, being levelled and ploughed, although the area around the megaliths was left undisturbed. At this time, 16 megaliths were visible, lying at various angles. A 15-metre (50-foot) high holly tree stood in the centre of them, and there was no sign of a mound. The landowner, Richard Boyle, opened a few test trenches in the area, during which he discovered Mesolithic flint tools. A large number of surface finds were discovered in both the field and a quarry 30 metres (100 feet) to the east.
  In the latter part of the 1950s, with plans afoot to build a house adjacent to Chestnuts Long Barrow, the Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments initiated an excavation of the site under the directorship of John Alexander. The excavation, which lasted five weeks in August and September 1957, was funded by Boyle, with the support of the Inspectorate, and largely carried out by volunteers. Following excavation, the fallen sarsen megaliths were re-erected in their original sockets, allowing for the restoration of part of the chamber and façade. The finds recovered from the excavation were placed in Maidstone Museum. Alexander's subsequent excavation report was described by Ashbee as "comprehensive" and "a model of its kind", and by Jessup as "a notable example of modern archaeology in the field".
caption: Finds from the 1957 excavation are stored at Maidstone Museum
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