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Victoria County History of Kent Vol. 3  1932 - Romano-British Kent - Topographical Index - Page 164

discoveries were brought to the notice of the Society of Antiquaries, but the most important publications are those by Mr. Reginald A. Smith in Proc. Soc. Ant. Lond. Ser. 2, Xxi, 268, and ibid. xxii, 395, and these give full references to all earlier papers. Representative series of the types may be seen in the British Museum and in the Guildhall Museum, while Maidstone Museum, Canterbury Museum and Rochester Museum have each one or more examples and there are others in private hands and in museums all over the country. Of the potter’s stamps, which are of special interest, Mr. Smith’s publications give full lists; however, since the date of their compilation (1907—9) the British Museum has considerably enlarged its collection from the Rock, and in compiling the new list of the stamps now in that Museum here given (fig. 33), Mr. C. F. C. Hawkes has been able to check and supplement the older lists in a number of places. His list should throughout be considered as a supplement to Mr. Smith’s, to which and to Mr. H. B. Walters’ Catalogue of Roman Pottery in the British Museum the reader is referred for full references.
   QUEX.—Roman pottery and numbers of leaden counters, thought to be Roman, were found here. [Arch. Cant. xii, proc. p. xl.]
   RADFIELD.—See Sittingbourne, p. 96.
   RAINHAM.—Traces of a building were found at the top of Otterham Creek. [C.R. Smith Coll Ant. vi, 197.] A large cemetery containing burnt burials with many fibulae, etc., was found in digging for brick earth a few hundred yards east of Lower Rainham. In addition a ditch along the length of the field was full of pottery, including saucers with imitation stamps, clay weights and a perforated square stone. In Rochester Museum, from the lower road, a Samian saucer  stamped Primi manu and reddish urns, and from Rainham itself are 8 or 10 fibulae, a spoon, a scalebeam and steelyard and a bronze worker’s board. [C. R. Smith, Coll: Ant. vi, 197ff.] Burials were also observed on both sides of the London road in gravel digging. From the drift near the chalk pit at Lower Rainham, three saucers and a dish of Samian ware, three urns and a saucer of ‘Upchurch ‘ ware, and a flask and an urn of red unglazed ware were obtained, perhaps the above. [Rochester Naturalist, 130, vi, 51.] A Samian saucer in a Saxon grave on the east side of Otterham Creek, stamped TITTIVS.F., was found about 1850 ; [C. R. Smith, Coll. Antiq. ii, 162] Payne [Coll. Cant. (1893), p. 86] mentions a Merovingian gold coin found in a plantation near the south side of the lower road at Rainham, and a pre-Christian gold coin found on Watling. Street, near Rainham, both of which were in the collection of Mr. Walter Prentis. A burial was found in 1881 in the saltings between Bartlett Ness and Nor Marsh. [Arch. Cant. xv, 108.] See also Gillingham and Upchurch for the potteries, in the marshes, p. 132
   RAMSGATE.—Various finds have been made here at different times. (1) On West Cliff many burnt burials have been found in building, draining and road making in 1849—50, 1870—1874, 1920— 1923. Burials with Samian ware in Cambridge Terrace, Eagle Lodge, St. Paul’s School, St. Mildred’s Road, where a glass urn was found and much early pottery and some early fibulae. In 1921 a cartload of pottery was moved from here and shallow ditches enclosing a roughly square enclosure with coins of Vespasian and Hadrian. A dene-hole was also found here with Roman objects in it. In 1923 2 groups containing South Gaulish ware, early cordoned Belgic ware, were found with bones of domestic animals. [Brit. Arch. Assoc. Journ. ii, 281; Arch. Cant. xii, 17 ; Arch. Cant. xvii, 4; Kelly’s Thanet Guide, 1904—5, p. 53 ff; Journ. of R. Studies, xi, 223; Antiq.’s Journ. iv, 53.] (2) Nearer to the town and by the S.E.R. station other objects have occurred—skeleton, a hoard of 120 coins and vases in the grounds of the South Eastern College and burials with fibulae, 1 enamelled, in the gardens of Victoria Crescent, Boundary Road. [Brit. Arch. Assoc. journ. ii, 28!; Payne, Coll. Cant. 202.] Seven rubbish or hut pits were opened in a chalk pit between High Street and the S.E.R. station between 1876 and 1888; they contained many potsherds (some of them very rude), bones of domestic animals, oyster shells, fragments of thin bronze, a piece of iron, like a handle, and flint boulders, one showing traces of a fire. Roman potsherds and 2 small silver coins of Nero and Aurelius were found near the pits, but at a later date. In the centre of the pits was a well-shaft, 115 ft. deep and 2 ft. 6 in. to 10 in. square. It was provided with foot holes, and had been almost completely filled with large flints, but the lowest 30 ft., contained alternate layers of earth, flints and bones, including those of the bos longifrons, horse, roebuck and dog, together with a few Roman potsherds, a bit of iron, and a (?) bronze vessel. This vessel was shaped like a deep basin; it had a capacity of 3 gallons, had lug handles and was much mended with rivets. [Arch. Cant. xxv, proc. p. lxviii.] At the bottom of the shaft were some stone slabs, one 2½ ft. diameter and nearly circular, with a hole through the centre much worn, as if by a rope. It would seem that this was originally a well, and when it became disused the stone cover from the top fell in, and the bucket after it; then it was used as a rubbish pit for some time,, and finally it had been filled in with flints and boulders. Among the pottery from

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