Farmstead record TR 36 NW 1518 - Foster's Folly, off Manston Road, Minster-in-Thanet

Type: Loose courtyard with working agricultural buildings on two sides Farmhouse: Farmhouse detached in central position Position: Isolated position Survivial: Farmstead completely demolished
(1-2)

During investigations associated with the construction of a new car park at Manston Airport in 2004 a look at the cartographic evidence indicated that the eastern part of the car park development was the site of Foster's Farm. The removal of topsoil during the 'strip and map' confirmed this by exposing a complex arrangement of wall foundations, chalk floors, clay floors, drains and ditches. The building complex measured 27m north-south and more than 18m east-west and appeared to front onto a road which survives now only as an overgrown bridleway.

Although some bricks of possible eighteenthor early nineteenth-centurydate were observed within the exposed footings of the building, its date of origin will probably be best ascertained by documentary rather than archaeological means. However, the presence of an almost perfectly circular pit of 10m diameter located 3m to the west of the complex, and undoubtedly the result of a large bomb explosion, indicates that it was destroyed during the Second World War. (3-4)

Foster's Folly, off Manston Road, Minster-in-Thanet as shown on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Edition O/S maps. It would appear that the farm was then demolished as it is not shown on the current O/S map.

Landmark, Ordnance Survey 1:2,500 map (OS 1st edition 1862-1875): Landmark Epoch 1 (Map). SKE30964.

Landmark, Ordnance Survey 1:2,500 map (OS 2nd Edition, 1897-1900): Landmark Epoch 2 (Map). SKE30965.

Landmark, Ordnance Survey 1:2,500 map (OS 4th Edition, 1929-1952): Landmark Epoch 4 (Map). SKE30967.

Landmark, 1907-1923, Ordnance Survey 1:2,500 map (OS 3rd Edition, 1907-1923): Landmark Epoch 3 (Map). SKE30966.

Swale and Thames Archaeological Survey Company, 2004, Interim report on the results of archaeological investigations on the site of the new car park at Kent International Airport, Manston, Thanet, Kent (Unpublished document). SKE30484.

<1> Forum Heritage Services, 2012, Kent Farmsteads & Landscape Project (Unpublished document). SKE18075.

<2> English Heritage, 2009, Historic Farmsteads: A Manual for Mapping (Unpublished document). SKE18076.

<3> Swale and Thames Archaeological Survey Company, 2004, Archaeological evaluation of land east of the Kent International Airport, Manston, Isle of Thanet, Kent (Unpublished document). SKE30485.