the same inference as about Worth Gate. Pillbrow found a well under its
archway, but no definite argument can be based on this. Immediately
outside he uncovered foundations which fit best with the medieval
drawbridge (Arch. xliii, 157).
(17) In Rose Lane, near St. Mary Bredin Church, was
discovered an interesting bit of inscribed Roman glass. Under the church,
says Brent, occurred a rude, unbaked cup of pre-Roman date (Cant. Olden
Time, 6). Further east, at the Middle Class Schools (Simon Langton’s
Schools) on the site of the White Friars, and near the centre of the
playground, was found in 1886, 4 ft. below the surface, a ‘floor of red
brick tesserae in Roman cement,’ 4 ft. or 5 ft. square, but (as
the discoverers thought) only part of a much larger whole. Broken
hypocaust-tiles occurred a few yards away, and suggest that the floor may
be Roman, and not, as its depth rather indicates, medieval (Dowker in Arch.
Cant. xvii, 36; xix, 101). Finally, in Gravel Walk, at 8 ft. deep,
Pillbrow cut into a line of earthen waterpipes with flanged joints by
which they fitted into one another (Arch. xliii, 160, no. 25). Such
waterpipes were used during the Roman period in Britain, and the depth
favours a Roman date for these, but the specimen of them now at Worthing
does not look very Roman.
C. Remains north of High Street and the Parade, described
from east to west.
(18) Burgate Lane yielded in 1867—8 a few undescribed
coins and a line of waterpipes of uncertain age, ending abruptly against a
brick wall which crossed the lane at right angles (Arch. xliii,
163); Canterbury Lane yielded a bronze ring and stylus (Cant. Olden
Time, pp. 31, 49, plate ii, 6). But definitely Roman remains are rare
in the district east of Iron Bar Lane. In that thoroughfare, on its east
side and at the Burgate Street end, and also in Burgate Street itself, the
drainage excavations of 1867 and the erection of a wine cellar for the
Crown Inn and of a Roman Catholic church in 1874, revealed a large deposit
of black vegetable matter, occasionally more than 20 ft. in depth,
resembling the deposits in the Parade and Watling Street (secs. 6 and 15),
probably, like them, an ancient water channel, and perhaps continuous
with them. This deposit was full of small objects, Roman and medieval.
Among the former were: a massive gold ring bearing an onyx engraved with a
Ganymede, a few coins, some coloured glass, much pottery (embossed Samian
and ruder wares, a lamp, part of a colander and spindlewhorls), and some
bronze pieces, pins, bell, armlet, parts of a chain and a balance, and a
circular disc or stud of a not uncommon type decorated with a chequer
pattern of blue and white enamel work. On one side of the deposit we are
told that there were ‘parallel lines of subterranean walls’; the
notice, in its uselessness, is typical of the records of Roman Canterbury.
For these finds see Arch. xliii, 156, 162, and plate xxiii (ring); Canterbury
Olden Time, 15; Proc. Soc. Antiq. vi, 377; for the enamelled
disc, Cant. Olden Time, 46, plate ix, 2, hence C. R. Smith, Coll.
Antiq. vii, 202, plate xx, 2. Another object, probably from the black
deposit, is a square bronze enamelled ornament, ‘possibly Late Celtic,’
found about 1874 (Proc. Soc. Antiq. Ser. II, vi, 377; Cant.
Olden Time, 6, 46, plate x, 3, hence Smith, Coll. Antiq. vu,
203, plate xxi). Other discoveries in Iron Bar Lane were less interesting,
since uncertain in date—a well under the Roman Catholic church, a wall
crossing the lane close to Burgate Street, and some masonry, already
noticed, close to the Parade (5).
(19) Burgate Street itself has yielded much. In 1868, at
18 yds. west of Iron Bar Lane and opposite 54 Burgate Street, was found 8
ft. deep a mosaic, about 4 ft. square, coloured in white, red and
blue or bluish-black and decorated with a conventional two-handled cup
inside a circle of guilloche (braid-work) and a square outer border of
lozenge ornament; beneath were two layers of concrete, brickdust, chalk,
and pebbles; on the floor, lay much burnt building debris. See Arch. xliii,
162, nos. 31 and 32; Brent in Proc. Soc. Antiq. Ser. II, v, 128; Gent.
Mag. 1868, i, 666; Cant. Olden Time, 15, 27, plate xii, hence
Morgan, Mosaics, 154; the mosaic is now in the museum. Further
finds made in 1871 at the same depth apparently belonged to the same
building as this mosaic. They lay partly beneath the south sidewalk of
Burgate Street and partly in a yard opening on to it, and consisted of a
wall of solid concrete, thought to be the south wall of the building, and
a tessellated floor bearing a plain geometrical pattern in red, white and
black, which had sunk at one end and had there been overlaid by a coarser
patch in red. Under the floor was ‘a small black mortuary urn,’
perfect; whether it contained a burial, or whether the term ‘mortuary’
is used loosely, is uncertain. Traces of other rooms and mosaics were
noted near but not examined (J. Brent in Proc. Soc. Antiq. v, 128).
West of this, by the end of Butchery Lane, Pillbrow found ‘a kind of
floor of York stone’ of indeterminate age, with Roman coins below it. In
Butchery Lane itself he observed that ‘all the coins found appeared to
have been more than usually burnt’ (Arch xliii, 162—3, plan no.
33).
(20) Several finds are recorded from Mercery Lane, notably a
large altar of Folkestone stone, found somewhere in this lane, in two
widely separated pieces (Arch. Cant. xv, 348; Cant. Olden Time, ‘6);
the date of the find and its character are not recorded, and the altar
itself has naturally vanished. Other finds made near the Christ Church
Gate are less satisfactory. Pillbrow found a
|