similar in construction, except that it was built on a causeway laid on piles, and it was not buried so deeply.⁴⁴   The left bank of the river, for some distance here, had once been a marsh 350 yds. wide even at its narrowest point, where the Roman road made an angle to cross it. A section of the Roman road was cut in laying storm-drains in 1897, near the railway bridge, at the junction of Station Road and High Street. The layers were: (1) a paved surface of rag boulders with fine gravel in the interstices (7 in.) ; (2) small pebble gravel mixed with black earth (9 in.); (3) flints, broken fine (7 in.) ; (4) rammed chalk (5 in.); (5) large flints, rough pieces of Kentish rag and bits of Roman tile (3 ft. 6 in.); (6) below this was marsh mud containing oak piles, about 4 in. long, with pieces of wood laid across them at intervals. The road seemed to be about 14 ft. wide, and on the surface were grooved wheel-tracks. Coins of Nerva, Pius, Gordian, and Maximian were found in the excavations, and a large lump of lead ore (60 lbs.) in layer No. 6. The road was found again in front of Aveling and Porter’s works, close to the bridge, and in other parts of High Street. Timber and piles were found in front of the Southern Railway Station and beneath the bridge. Part of another paved road was also found near Aveling and Porter’s works, and was thought to be a lane leading down to the river from the main Roman road. This road was found again on the Rochester side, just outside Eastgate, beneath Franklin, Homan’s warehouses (Nos. 178—180 High Street), between Eastgate and Star Hill, and just a little south of the present road, which here curves slightly to the north. The layers were accumulated earth (1 ft. 3 in.); road paved with Kentish rag, laid in stiff, dark clay (6 in.); pebble gravel mixed with similar clay and rammed (6 in.); chalk and flints rammed (1 ft. 6 in.); and in 1927, as Mr. Dibley reports, it was found again further south beyond Almond Place and on the west side of the street.
   Roads running north and south have also been found. The straight lanes that connect the Common and High Street may easily represent the site of Roman streets, and, in fact, the Roman road was found beneath North Gate (formerly called Pump Lane). Those on the south side of High Street arc no longer traceable, for castle and cathedral and monastery have completely obliterated or overlaid them. A piece, however, was found in 1900 beneath the offices of the Bishop’s Registrar (Arnold, Baker and Day), between College Green and Boley Hill Street. The section showed accumulated surfaces (2 ft. 8 in.); road paved with blocks, about 8 in. square, in a bed of mortar, 2 in. thick; rammed chalk (4 ft. 6 in.); flint, sharp gravel and fragments of tile (2 ft. 4 in.). The whole lay on a bed of vegetable mould.
   While more is known about the walls of Rochester than about those of many other Roman towns, almost nothing has been discovered of the buildings within them. The reason is a simple one : very few houses in Rochester have been rebuilt from the foundations for a century or more, and opportunity for observation has therefore rarely arisen in modern times. When rebuilding begins on any considerable scale, a great chance will present itself for recovering the general lay-out of the Roman town.
   During the restoration of the Cathedral in or before 1888, Roman pottery and faced stones (not in situ) were found ‘under the south transept gable in a
   ⁴⁴  "A measured section of this road is preserved in the Rochester Museum. See below under ‘roads’
               (p. 136) and Top. Index under Strood.