with the actual construction of the platform and its
superstructure; its date and its comparatively short life tend to
support this view. Be that as it may, its walls were in ruins and the
remains of its floors were already covered with debris from 1 ft. to 2
ft. in depth when, at some uncertain date in the second century, a
building of entirely different design was erected upon the site. The
small portion of this new building which has survived the falls of the
adjacent cliff points to a structure of ‘courtyard‘ plan, with
ranges of small rooms flanked by verandahs. The walls were of plastered
flint with double lacing-courses of tiles, and the floors seem in some
cases to have been of timber. Beyond the fact that the building was
apparently of domestic type, it is now impossible to guess its precise
purpose; but, as will be seen, it appears to have been of some
importance, and to have survived until the building of the Saxon-Shore
fortress in the latter part of the third century. It was then destroyed,
and the north wall of the fortress passes over it.
Meantime, another building had been set up close to the
north-west corner of the platform. The front (southern) part of this
building consisted of three oblong rooms, with a range of smaller rooms
and a corridor-approach at the back. The walls, as surviving, consist of
deep foundations of coursed flint with brick quoins. On the east side
was a series of buttresses, and on the west, which is now incomplete,
was a drain or conduit which formerly extended northwards beyond the
(later) north wall of the Saxon-Shore fortress. The building is
difficult to classify; it may have been either a dwelling-house or a
workshop. Its initial date, as suggested by the contents of pits and a
well which preceded it, was about A.D. 150, and a hint as to its
terminal date is given by the fact that it was clearly a ruin when, in
the third century, the defensive ditches of a small fortification were
cut through it.
This fortification introduces the next phase of the history
of the site. At a period which, on the evidence of excavation, is placed
provisionally in the middle or the third quarter or the third century, a
space nearly 300 ft. square, with the great platform in its centre, was
enclosed by three V-shaped ditches, doubtless with an earthen rampart on
their inmost margin. The eastern side of these defences has been almost
completely destroyed by erosion. In the midst of the western side is a
causeway through them. The courtyard-house to the north-east of the
platform was respected by the builders of these defences, since the two
outer ditches are stopped against it and the innermost curves slightly
to avoid it. Otherwise, no structure has yet been identified with this
small fort, and it is, indeed, difficult not to believe that the primary
object of the entrenchments was to protect the structure on the
platform. If this served as a look-out and an aid to shipping, it may
well be that in the earlier years of the Saxon raids, before the
elaboration of the Saxon-Shore defensive system, it was found necessary
to take this provisional step to protect one of the principal seamarks
of the Channel Fleet.
How long this small fort remained in use is not altogether
evident, but it was observed that ‘the ditches showed little sign of
having been open for any length of time.’ They probably remained
operative, however, until they were superseded by the Saxon-Shore
fortress as we now know it. Whether this fortress was built before or
after the recovery of Britain by the official regime in 296 is not yet
certain, but it is at least clear, as a result of the recent
excavations, that it was erected within the last thirty or forty years
of |