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The Towns of Roman Kent
I. INTRODUCTION
The geographer Ptolemy, writing in the first half of the
second century A.D., affirms that the principal cities of the Cantii were
Londinium, Darouernon (Canterbury), and Rutupiae (Richborough). In
including London within Kent, he was doubtless influenced not merely by
the extensive southern bridge—head settlement in Southwark, but also by
the general fact that, from the Continental standpoint, London dominated
the horizon of the Kentish ports. His view may be contrasted with that of
the more insular Saxons who, later, included London in Essex.
From our present survey, Roman London and its suburbs are
excluded.1 Richborough, now known
to us primarily by its military remains, has already been discussed (p.
24). Canterbury, the tribal capital of the Cantii and the nodal
point in the Roman road-system between London and the ports, therefore
assumes priority. Like many other tribal capitals, it was at some period
in its Roman history dignified by a girdle of fortifications. This dignity
it shared, so far as we know, with only one other Kentish town— that of
Durobrivae, which has left its outline in the streets and gardens of
Rochester. Both Canterbury and Rochester occupy characteristic Roman sites
at points where a main road crosses a river-valley. How far Roman
Canterbury owed its origin to Roman choice, and how far it was influenced
by pre-Roman tribal interests, is a debatable question 2;
but there is no reason to doubt that Rochester at least, set astride the
Watling Street at the crossing of the Medway, was a purely Roman
foundation. As such, it may stand as the archetype of several minor Roman
towns and villages within the limits of our county. It is hardly an
exaggeration to say that, wherever a Roman main road in Kent crosses the
head of a creek or spans a river-valley, there may be found the relics of
a Roman settlement. How far, in our description of these remains, we are
justified in isolating them and dubbing them ‘town’ or ‘village’
is not always easy to say. The Watling Street of Kent seems, indeed, to
have threaded an almost continuous series, of Roman settlements of one
kind or another—here represented by a villa or a cemetery, there by a
few rubbish-pits and potsherds, the sole surviving relics, perhaps, of
timber cottages. In this far-flung line of Romano-British settlement, the
valley-crossings stand out merely as local focus-points which we should be
wrong to emphasize unduly. For example, between Rochester and Canterbury,
the districts of Faversham and Sittingbourne—each at the head of one of
the larger creeks which intersect the marshland towards Sheppey—were
undoubtedly areas of intensive habitation. It is less important, however,
to remember this than to observe that the whole strip of habitable ground
lying between the Wading Street and the Swale, for 16 miles or more east
of Rochester, is strewn with Roman ‘villas,’ cemeteries, pottery and
other
1 See J’.C.H. London, I, i
Ct seq.; Roman London, Roy. Corn. Hist. Mon.
Eng. 2 See p. 61.
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