Hero · Aylesford
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A prince of the Britons, they said, under a five-thousand-year-old lid.
See it clearly
English Heritage site in a fenced field; free entry. Check before you go.
Three stones and a lid on a Kentish hillside. The Tudors decided a British prince fell fighting the Saxons and lies under it.
Kit's Coty House is three upright stones topped by a huge capstone, standing in a field on the slope above Aylesford. It is the remains of a Neolithic burial chamber, but Tudor antiquaries gave it a hero. They said it marked the grave of Catigern, a British prince and brother of Vortimer, who was killed fighting the Saxon leaders Hengist and Horsa at the Battle of Aylesford around 455. The name 'Kit's Coty' was taken to mean Catigern's house. English Heritage notes that the tradition was already being repeated in print in the 1580s and has stuck to the stones ever since.