Fordcroft Anglo-Saxon cemetery

Fordcroft Anglo-Saxon Cemetery

Location within Greater London
Location	Orpington, London Borough of Bromley
Coordinates	51°23′19″N 0°06′26″E / 51.388608°N 0.107218°E / 51.388608; 0.107218
Type	Anglo-Saxon inhumation and cremation cemetery

Fordcroft Anglo-Saxon cemetery was a place of burial. It is located in the town of Orpington in South East London, South-East England. Belonging to the Middle Anglo-Saxon period, it was part of the much wider tradition of burial in Early Anglo-Saxon England. Fordcroft was a mixed inhumation and cremation ceremony.

Archaeologists affiliated with the local Orpington Museum began excavating in 1965, expecting to find evidence of Romano-British occupation, but after discovering the cemetery decided to focus on it. Excavation continued for four seasons, ending in 1968.

The site was located in Orpington, close to the border with St. Mary Cray. It sits between Bellefield Road and Poverest Road, near to the junction with the A224 road. The source of the River Cray lies half a mile south of the cemetery, while the river itself passes by 200 metres away from the site. The plot of land on which it was discovered was 1/8 of an acre in size. The soil is largely brick-earth, resting on the Flood Plain gravel which covers the valley floor.

The nearest settlement that is known to be long-established is the farmstead of Poverest, the name of which can be traced to the early-14th century. The area remained agricultural land lying between the two villages until the mid-19th century, when increasing development led to the area becoming suburban. Several Victorian cottages had been built atop the cemetery, but were demolished during the following century, when the site became "overgrown with weeds and littered with rubbish" prior to excavation.

With the advent of the Anglo-Saxon period in the fifth century CE, the area that became Kent underwent a radical transformation on a political, social, and physical level. In the preceding era of Roman Britain, the area had been administered as the civitas of Cantiaci, a part of the Roman Empire, but following the collapse of Roman rule in 410 CE, many signs of Romano-British society began to disappear, replaced by those of the ascendant Anglo-Saxon culture. Later Anglo-Saxon accounts attribute this change to the widescale invasion of Germanic language tribes from northern Europe, namely the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. Archaeological and toponymic evidence shows that there was a great deal of syncretism, with Anglo-Saxon culture interacting and mixing with the Romano-British culture.