the north —eastern corner, the second-century
courtyard—house had likewise been laid low, for the great
rampart sprawled across it. But the traditions of this much—built—on
site were still kept alive. Here facing up with and slightly overlapping
the abortive foundation of the eastern defensive wall, was now erected a
small bath—building, consisting of only four rooms, with the usual
furnace and hypocausts. A coin of Tetrictis I (A.D. 268—273) found
beneath one of the floors shows that the building was not earlier than
that date. How long the building remained in use there was no means of
ascertaining.
Apart from some uncertain traces in the north—western
quarter, there is at present no other stone building which can
definitely be associated with the fortress. of slighter evidences of
fourth-century occupation—burnt clay floors, vestiges of huts and the
like—there are many. But the contrast between the solidity and
permanence of the defences and the meagreness and evanescence of these
structures within them is nothing less than astonishing. It would seem
that the gaunt shell of Richborough was always a shell; that it was a
corral into which men and materials could he herded in an emergency,
rather than a permanently garrisoned stronghold either in the full sense
of the earlier Roman forts or even in the more restricted sense of the
later medieval castles. As a temporary refuge, the absence of bulk stone
buildings would increase its capacity, whilst the towering walls would
keep timber hutments tolerably sale from hostile firebrands. Along lines
such as these it may ultimately be found possible to explain the
paradox; but the solution cannot approach certainty until other
Saxon-Shore forts, such as Burgh Castle, have been called to witness by
the excavator.
It remains to notice certain other structures of various
Roman dates on and about the hill of Richborough. Within the lines of
the fortress itself have been found, close to the western side of the
platform, the remains of an oblong building, resembling in plan a small
classical temple with cella and eastern portico. The foundations, which
were in bad condition, were probably of third or fourth century date,
and the date of the structure is doubtful. About 80 yards north-west of
it was a small hexagonal fountain, also of late period.34 Outside
the fortress many miscellaneous remains have been noted to the west and
south. Long ago Camden recorded marks of crossing streets as visible in
the growing corn. His statement is obscurely worded. Probably he refers
to the ‘cross’ inside the fort.35 But he has been
generally taken to mean streets outside the fort, and this has at any
rate prompted others to observe indications there. Stukeley thought he
saw the lines of streets in the corn outside the fort; Boys actually
mapped some roadways in front of the west gate; others have noted
similar indications more recently. These surface indications are not,
perhaps, safe guides, since they are sometimes due to natural masses of
gravel. Certainly, trial-trenches both in 1887 and more recently have
only partially confirmed them. Dowker, in the earlier year, found
abundant traces of Roman occupation of a kind, both west and north of
the fort—one or two bits of roadway, scattered foundations, traces of
buildings destroyed by fire, a brick floor, a rubbish pit, much
34 First Richborough
Report, 19.
35 Camden, Britannia (ed.1590),
205-6; ‘hodie arvum est, in quo platearum tractus cum
seges succreverit, se intersecantes videas. (Ubicunquc enim plateae
duxerunt, rarescit seges) quas vulgo S. Augustines Crossere appellat.
Et semiruta quaedam arcis moenia solum supersunt, quadrata forma
sabulo tenacissimo materiata’ Camden seems, at first reading, to
distingush the fort from the remains outside it, and to place the marks
in the corn among the latter. But his reference to the 'cross'
definitely us inside the walls. |