Society of Antiquaries some bald and unintelligent
notes. For the rest, the evidence that might have told the tale of Roman
Canterbury was found, ignored, destroyed, or buried.. Today we can only
piece together fragments of what might have been a real picture. We can
discern a town which looks as if it were a member, though perhaps an
unimportant member, of the class of Romano-British country-towns already
mentioned (p. 7). We find no difficulty in believing that this country
town was also a tribal capital. But if anyone asks for details, the size
of the town, the line of its ramparts, the plan of its streets, the
fashion of its houses, the periods of its first beginning or its greatest
prosperity, we have no proper answers to give. We can merely attempt a
critical survey of the extent and value of our present evidence. There is
the more reason for this inasmuch as nothing of the kind has been essayed
before.
Our survey begins with the walls. It is a priori likely
that Durovernum was walled. It is equally probable that the line of its
Roman walls, like those of Rochester and similar towns, was to some extent
followed by its medieval ramparts. Three or four pieces of definite
evidence can be cited in support of these probabilities. They indicate,
first, that two gateways and a part of the medieval wall, on the south
side of the town, stand on the site of two Roman gateways and a Roman
town-wall. The two medieval gateways are Worth Gate and Riding Gate. These
preserved, as late as the 18th century, some ancient arches, which have
often been imagined to be Roman work. The gates themselves have since been
altered out of all recognition, but sketches survive which support the
Roman origin of the vanished masonry. Near Worth Gate, moreover, some
masonry was found in 1867—8, which might reasonably be thought part of a
Roman town-wall. This evidence suggests that the two gates represent Roman
gateways and that the ‘whole southern angle of the medieval enceinte
between and near them—some 600 yards in length—follows the course of
the Roman wall. This conclusion, however, involves a difficulty. The piece
of wall in question lies some way outside the area actually occupied by
Roman buildings, and the interval contains both Roman burials and also
some watercourses which were seemingly open in Roman times (pp. 69, 71).
Neither of these things suits the interior of a Roman town, and their
occurrence here is hard to explain away. But the evidence, as at present
available, does not lend itself to profitable discussion. The problem,
like so many others, must be left to the spade. Nearly the whole stretch
of wall now in question is accessible to excavation. If it stands on the
old Roman line, Roman masonry can easily be laid bare. When the citizens
of Canterbury spend a few pounds on digging here, the discussion of the
problem ,may be resumed.
From the Riding Gate, a useful piece of evidence, only lately
identified, carries the Roman wall nearly 600 yards to the north-eastward,
presumably on the line of its medieval successor. To the east of the
Cathedral, on the site of the former Quenin Gate, long covered by sheds,
is a blackened fragment of the jamb and arch of a third Roman gateway
(fig. 13). The remains consist of large jamb-stones and the first few
courses of a brick arch embedded in the existing town wall, and the whole
structure was apparently similar in type to the supposed Roman Worth and
Riding gates destroyed in the 18th century (P1. XI).
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