Kit’s Coty House is one of the oldest man-made structures in the Cross-Channel Geopark, which is thought to have been created around 6000 years ago.
Kit’s Coty House
The main ‘house’ of Kits Coty is made up of four huge stones, three stood upright with one lying flat across the top of the others.
These stones are made of sarsen, the exact same type of rock that was used to create much of Stonehenge.
Although it’s use isn’t certain, experts generally agree that the structure you can see today was a kind of gateway to a huge burial mound that would have been up to 80 metres long and 15 metres wide. The people who created this site were living in what we now know as the Early Neolithic period, and were some of the first communities in Britain to switch from hunter-gathering to farming. Nearby you can find other sites including Little Kit’s Coty and the Countless Stones, and together all three sites are part of the ‘Medway Megaliths’ group of sites that can be found in this part of Kent.
About Geosites
Geosites are sites of geological interest across the aspiring UNESCO Cross-Channel Global Geopark, where people can visit and interact with our geological heritage. This wide range of sites will offer varying opportunities and values including cultural, heritage, scientific, educational, and aesthetic.
About the aspiring UNESCO Cross-Channel Global Geopark
Hundreds of thousands of years ago a catastrophic flood swept away the chalk ridge connecting Dover and Calais, carving out the white cliffs of Dover and starting Britain’s history as an island.
Did you know the Kent and French coasts are actually still connected today by the layer of chalk which runs below the Channel?
In celebration of the chalk and the channel, we are working to secure UNESCO Cross-Channel Global Geopark status for the Kent Downs National Landscape together with our neighbouring protected landscape in France; the Parc Naturel Regional des Caps et Marais d’Opale.
The Geopark will include both the protected landscapes and the Channel connecting them, recognising and celebrating the geological connection between us.
