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Victoria County History of Kent Vol. 3  1932 - Romano-British Kent - Towns - Page 69

and Counties Bank on the west side of the junction of High Street and St. Margaret’s Street, there was unearthed in 1860, at a depth described as ‘the Roman level,’ a layer of burnt wheat and wood ashes, 8-10 in. thick—remains, presumably, of a Roman store which had perished by fire (Arch. Cant. iv, 36; Proc. Soc. Antiq. Ser. II, i, 327). Later excavations in 1887 showed that the soil beneath the bank itself was full of Roman debris and burnt wood; a gold coin of Tiberius, first brass coins of Vespasian, Trajan, and Hadrian, and Samian potsherds emerged, while, a white clay figurine of Gaulish type, 7 in. high, of a woman in a wicker chair, was found under Hammond’s Bank, immediately west of the other Bank (Dowker, Arch. Cant. xvii, 34: figure in Museum). In connexion with these remains may~ be mentioned three walls, built entirely of Roman tiles, 3 ft. to 4 ft. apart, running due east and west, crossing St. Margaret’s Street obliquely, at 9 ft. from High Street, and therefore quite close to the last-noticed finds (Arch. xliii, 1551, 159, no. 53). The direction of these walls is oblique to that of those found under High Street (2) and the Parade (4). Their depth is not recorded. Their position and construction suggest that they are Roman work.
   (4) In the Parade the drainage works of 1860 revealed a series of 8 or 9 walls, built of stone or tile, 1˝-2˝ ft. thick, 18-25 ft. distant from one another, and 8-10 ft. deep, which crossed the modern street at right angles at .various points between the London and County Bank—90 ft. east of St. Margaret’s. Street—and the east end of the Corn Exchange, a total distance of some 180 ft. (Proc. Soc. Antiq. Ser. II, i, 328, and briefly Gent. Mag. 1861, i, 70, and Cant. Olden Time, 15 (Find at Amos’ shop)). Between two of these walls, in front of the Fleece Inn, at a depth of 7 ft., Pillbrow discovered in 1867—8 a floor, 4 ft. wide, of white tesserae and, next it on the west, a tiled floor, laid 3 in. lower, and a flint and mortar wall, presumably one of those seen in i 86o (Arch. xliii, 155, no. 35; piece of tessell. in Museum; Mus. Cat. p. 1, unless it be another find). At a distance of 9 ft. 10 in. north of the building line of the Fleece Inn, 13 The Parade, a Roman wall of flint rubble 2 ft. 8 in. thick and running north-west and south-east, was found in 1929 (Journ. Rom. Studies, xix, 210).
   (5) Close to the preceding, at the High Street end of Butchery Lane, Pillbrow found in
a wall, 4˝ ft. thick, constructed of flint with three courses of red tiles, and one course of black (?burnt) tiles, possibly a bonding course. Its foundation was not reached at a depth of 10 ft.; its direction was east and west, that is, oblique to the walls under the Parade; against its western face stood a circular column of Roman bricks (Arch. xliii, 163, no. 34). The whole appears to be Roman; the column was perhaps a hypocaust pillar. Here also may be mentioned some undescribed foundations detected at the Parade end of Iron Bar Lane,. the age of which is entirely uncertain (ibid. 156, no. 29).
   (6) At the east end of the series of walls in the Parade lay a great deposit of black vegetable soil, 135 ft. wide and very deep. It stretched along the street from the Corn Exchange to Iron Bar Lane, and it was also traced beneath a house (once Frend’s) next to the Exchange on the north side of the street; while another piece of it, or another deposit, was noted in 1885 further to the west on the south side of the street, under the London and County (now Westminster) Bank. In this deposit lay promiscuously Roman potsherds, oyster-shells, and bones of bos longifrons (Proc. Soc. Antiq. Ser. II, i, 328 (cf. vi, 378), and Arch. Cant. iv, 35; xvii, 37). It is probably connected with similar deposits in Iron Bar Lane and Burgate Street, and may represent a former channel of the Stour, still partly open in Roman times.
   (7) East of the black deposit less has been found. In 1867—8 the drainage revealed under St. George’s Street, in front of a house once Mr. Sanderson’s, now identifiable as No. 43, midway between Ironbar and Canterbury Lanes, two walls 8 ft. apart, 3 ft. thick and coursed with Roman tiles, with a tile floor adjoining the eastern wall; near by lay a few coins, an enamelled bronze fibula, etc. The tops of these walls were 9˝ ft. and the floor 10 ft. below street level (Arch. xliii, 155 (no. 27) and 156 (no. 29), plate xxxii, i). The walls appear to have been Roman; if so, they are the most easterly Roman structure yet definitely recorded in Canterbury. Battely, indeed, mentions as Roman ‘an arch firm and solid’ and near it ‘a pavement of broad freestones,’ found about 1700 a little within St. George’s Gate (Somner, Canterbury, ed. 1703, p.. 192). But this can hardly be discussed without more knowledge of its site, depth, and character. Small objects of Roman date have, however, been found in the interval between the black deposit and the gate. Many potsherds are said to have occurred here, though few details are given (Mus. Cat. p. 20; Proc. Soc. Antiq. Ser. II, i, 328). A Roman urn containing burnt bones was found in 1860 near the church, 8 ft. deep in what seemed alluvial soil (Arch. Cant. iv, 36, and (briefly) Cant. Olden Time, 20, 42, Proc. Soc. Ant. Ser. II, i, 328). Outside St. George’s Gate and along the New Dover Road nothing has been recorded, except a Roman leaden coffin found near the Gate, in Bridge Street (p. 73).
   B. Remains found south of High Street and the Parade, described from west to east.
  
(8) In Stour Street (Lamb Lane), besides the foundations by the County Hotel noted above (p. 6z), the works of 1867—8 revealed, just at the end of Jewry Lane, a pavement 5 ft. wide, made,

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