Victoria
County History of Kent Vol. 3
1932 - Romano-British
Kent - Military History - Page 33
broken pottery, some burnt wheat and burnt cordage
(?), and various small objects, in particular a little votive ‘thumb’
in bronze.36 Dowker inferred from the burnt wheat the
existence of large granaries. But nothing in the recorded remains really
resembles the granaries on other Roman sites. We may think rather of
poor cottages, the homes and shops of fishers and harbourmen. It must be
confessed that the evidences accord little with our ideas of a
flourishing town and port.
To the south of the fortress four sites have produced
structural relics of importance. On the highest part of the hill, 450
yards from the fortress, are the buried remains of a small amphitheatre.37
This has been known and recognized since Leland, who says that in
his time it was called Littleborough. Roach Smith partially excavated it
in 1849. It proved to be elliptical in shape, measuring 166 ft. by 200
ft., and enclosed by a flint wall 3½ ft. thick, faced on the outside
with local chalk and on the inside with mortar. From the bottom of the
inner face of this wall a bed of mortar or cement, 2 in. thick, spread
15 ft. towards the centre of the arena, while on this bed and against
the wall rested a sloping bank of mixed |
clay and mortar, 8 ft. long at the bottom and 7
ft. high at its highest—perhaps a support for wooden seats. Lastly,
three entrances were identified, a large one on the north and two
smaller ones on the south and west. On the ruined wall of the western
entrance a skeleton was found, ‘lying on its left side, the legs drawn
up and the wrists crossing each other. The place had evidently been
hollowed out for its reception : most of the bones of the hands and feet
were wanting: but. where the right hand had been, a brass coin of
Constans was found.’ This was presumably a post-Roman burial, possibly |
Fig 8 Richborough: Plan of Roman
Amphitheatre discovered 1849
(From C. Roach-Smith, Richborough,
p. 162)
|
of an executed criminal. The general date of the
amphitheatre may be indicated by the fact that ‘the coins found among
the ruins are confined to the period extending from the time of
Gallienus to that of Arcadius, with the exception of one of earlier date—a
denarius of Domitian.’ The period thus suggested is that of the
Saxon-Shore fortress, and it may be found on further exploration that
the amphitheatre was the work of the garrison—the Second Legion—which
had long possessed a serviceable amphitheatre at its former station,
Caerleon.
East of the amphitheatre, during the laying of a colliery
railway in 1926, the remains of two small temples were exposed and
largely destroyed. The
36 Stukeley (ed. 1724), 118;
Boys, Sandwich, 868; Dowker, Arch. Cant. xviii, 5. A
platform of square tiles outside the north wall is recorded by Hasted
(iii, 689), but too vaguely to be used as evidence. See below, p. 128.
37 Leland, ed. Hearne, vii, f. 138; Boys, Sandwich,
867; Nichols’ Bibl. Topogr. Brit. i, 47; C. R. Smith, Richborough,
etc., 52, 161. |
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