Editing Swanscombe (section)

===Viking era===
[[File:St Peter and St Paul, Swanscombe, Kent - geograph.org.uk - 326667.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Church of St Peter and St Paul, Swanscombe]]
During archaeological work undertaken at [[Ebbsfleet Valley|Ebbsfleet]], before construction of [[High Speed 1]], an [[Anglo-Saxons|Anglo-Saxon]] mill and a [[Roman Britain|Roman]] [[villa]] were found near Swanscombe.

From [[Crayford]] to the [[Isle of Thanet]] the [[Danes (Germanic tribe)|Danes]] occupied the land and terrorised the [[Saxons|Saxon]] inhabitants, giving rise to the appearance of [[Denehole]]s, of which many have survived to this day. These were [[water well|well]]s, cut deep into the [[chalk]] landscape, thought to be for concealing people and goods. They have a simple vertical shaft with short tunnels bearing horizontally from the base.

The [[Vikings]] settled throughout the winter along the [[Thames]] estuary with their ships and established camps in Kent and [[Essex]]. In surveying the distribution of the many deneholes along the Thames corridor it would appear that Essex, on the northern shore of the Thames, sustained a greater influx of Vikings than did Kent, there being considerably more recorded deneholes in Essex, particularly around [[Orsett]] and Grays – see [[Hangman's Wood]].

Archaeological digs and centuries of tilling have revealed a Danish [[castle]] and settlement, with pottery, anchors, weapons and some ships' timbers. The settlement was later variously called ''Suinescamp'' (in the [[Domesday Book]] of 1086), ''Sweinscamp'' and ''Swanscamp''. Legend derives the name from the Viking king [[Sweyn Forkbeard]], who landed in [[East Anglia]] and became [[Kings of England|King of England]] in 1013. The father of [[Cnut|Canute]], Sweyn died at [[Gainsborough, Lincolnshire|Gainsborough]], on the [[River Trent|Trent]], in 1014. Canute (Cnut) died in [[Shaftesbury]] in 1035, and his sons were unable to hold on to his empire. But the name of Swanscombe cannot derive from Sweyn Forkbeard, as the place-name is first attested in 695 AD.

Other research suggests that deneholes might have been dug as a method of extracting chalk for use on the fields above, or the mining may have been a by-product of defence. In any case the practice reached a peak around the 13th&nbsp;– 14th centuries, long after the Viking raids had ceased.