Little Kit's Coty House

The Countless Stones

The stones of Little Kit's Coty House

Little Kit's Coty House, also know as The Countless Stones, is the site of a Neolithic chambered long barrow on Blue Bell Hill near Aylesford in Kent. The site is one of the Medway megaliths. Their name comes from an old wives' tale that every time you count the stones, the result will be different.

Now a jumble of half-buried sarsen stones, the site is thought to have been a tomb similar to that of the Coldrum Stones. The name 'Countless Stones' is derived from the belief that the chaotic pile of stones from the collapsed tomb were uncountable and various stories are told about the fate of those who tried. Another nearby site that may have been Neolithic is at Cossington.

There are between 19 and 21 stones depending on the authority. They were pushed over in the seventeenth century seemingly before any antiquarian interest was taken in them. William Stukeley attempted to reconstruct the damaged tomb in plan in the eighteenth century.

The site as drawn by Stukeley in 1722

Archaeological evaluation trenching in 1989 found no clear evidence of any surrounding quarry ditch which would normally have been excavated to provide material for a covering barrow. Iron Age activity was found close by.

The better preserved Kit's Coty House stands around 500 yards to the north.

In 1893, the antiquarian George Payne mentioned the monument in his Collectanea Cantiana, describing it as a "fallen cromlech" and noting that there were various other megaliths scattered in the vicinity, suggesting that these were part of the monument of another like it, since destroyed.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Little Kit's Coty House)

• Location map: 51°18’57"N, 0°30’5"E
• Kit's Coty House and Little Kit's Coty House – English Heritage
• Kit's Coty House and Little Kit's Coty House: History and research – History and research

References

• Coldrum Long Barrow – The National Trust
• Paul Ashbee (1998). "Coldrum Revisited and Reviewed". Archaeologia Cantiana (Kent Archaeological Society) 118: 1–44. 
• Bennett, F.J. (January–June 1913). "Coldrum Monument and Exploration 1910". Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 43: 76–85. 
• Burl, Aubrey (1981). Rites of the Gods. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-0460043137. 
• Clinch, George (1904). "Coldrum, Kent, and Its Relation to Stonehenge". Man 4: 20–23. 
• Filkins, E. (1928). "Excavations at Coldrum, Kent". The Antiquaries Journal 8: 356–357. doi:10.1017/s0003581500092970. 
• Grinsell, Leslie V. (1976). Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain. London: David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-7241-6. 
• Hutton, Ronald (1991). The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy. Oxford, U.K. and Cambridge, U.S.: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-17288-8. 
• Keith, A. (January–June 1913). "Report on the Human Remains Found by F. J. Bennett, Esq., F.G.S., in the Central Chamber of a Megalithic Monument at Coldrum, Kent". Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 43: 86–100. 
• Lewis, A.L. (1878). "On a Rude Stone Monument in Kent". The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 7: 140–142. 
• Lewis, A.L. (1904). "The Coldrum Monument". Man (Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland) 4: 395. 
• Malone, Caroline (2001). Neolithic Britain and Ireland. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus. ISBN 0-7524-1442-9. 
• Payne, George (1893). Collectanea Cantiana: Or, Archæological Researches in the Neighbourhood of Sittingbourne, and Otherparts of Kent. London: Mitchell and Hughes. 
• Petrie, W.M. Flinders (1880). "Notes on Kentish Earthworks". Archaeologia Cantiana 13: 8–16. 
• Philp, Brian; Dutto, Mike (2005). The Medway Megaliths (third ed.). Kent: Kent Archaeological Trust. 
• Smith, Martin; Brickley, Megan (2009). People of the Long Barrows: Life, Death and Burial in the Early Neolithic. Stroud: The History Press. ISBN 978-0752447339. 
• Wright (1844). "Proceedings of the Committee". The Archaeological Journal 1: 262–264. http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/archjournal/contents.cfm?vol=1&CFID=5195&CFTOKEN=663E25CD-A9DC-4B7A-90EC9AF328B8CE55. 
• S.P. Menefee, "The Countless Stones: A Final Reckoning," Folklore, vol. 86 (Autumn/Winter, 1975): pp. 146-66.