Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Romano-British clay pits, Temple?, charnel pit (dug in the 11th century) disturbed in 1070 with theconstruction of Lanfranc's cathedral and graves south of St Gabriel's Chapel

The site is within the City of Canterbury, on the base of the Stour Valley. OD 10-15m.

Monument Types

• CLAY PIT (CLAY PIT, Roman - 43 AD to 266 AD)
• ROAD (Roman - 167 AD to 266 AD)
• TEMPLE (TEMPLE, Roman - 200 AD to 266 AD)
• CHARNEL PIT (CHARNEL PIT, Early Medieval or Anglo-Saxon to Medieval - 1000 AD to 1520 AD)

Full description

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A number of small trenches were excavated immediately south of St Gabriel's Chapel (TR 15155789 sited from plan authority 1) by CAT between 1978-80. The earliest features which covered almost the whole area excavated consisted of intercutting pits, probably clay quarries dating to the 1st and 2nd centuries. During the late 2nd/ early 3rd century a minor Roman street or cobbled track, running approximately immediately NE-SW, was laid across the site. By the early to mid 3rd century the track had gone out of use and a Roman building, possibly a temple, was constructed over its west side. This structure had at least 3 rooms, all with tessellated floors, one of which contained a mosaic panel. To the east of the structure, remnants of a courtyard were excavated. Finds included a bronze Silvus head and a hand-moulded figurine. Cutting across the Roman mosaic was a massive east-west wall foundation, which proved to be earlier than the foundations of the present Cathedral Choir of 1096, and therefore may relate to Lanfranc's early Norman Cathedral or the Anglo-Saxon Cathedral. A charnel pit containing redeposited human bones was found cut by the still extant late 11th century foundations, This pit almost certainly contains Saxon burials disturbed and reinterred during the c1096 building work. From the 12th to the 15th centuries the whole area was used as the Cathedral Cemetery, monks being buried to the east of St Gabriel's Chapel and lay persons to the west. These two graveyards were separated by a wall running south from the chapel (demolished c1850) the foundations of which were also discovered along with eighteen burials belonging to the cemetery itself. These were overlain by a brick drain of c1500 which is still in use. (1-7)

Andrew Richardson, 2000, Gazetteer of Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries and Burial-Sites in Kent (Unpublished document). SKE29253.

<1> Arch Cant 100 1984 178 plan (T Tatton-Brown) (OS Card Reference). SKE34522.

<2> Arch Cant 94 1978 278 (T Tatton-Brown) (OS Card Reference). SKE36197.

<3> Arch Cant 95 1979 278 (T Tatton-Brown) (OS Card Reference). SKE36218.

<4> Arch Cant 96 1980 396-397 (T Tatton-Brown) (OS Card Reference). SKE36264.

<5> CAT Ann Rep 1979-80 18-20 (J Rady) (OS Card Reference). SKE38659.

<6> Brit 11 1980 401 (FO Grew) (OS Card Reference). SKE38300.

<7> CBA Res Rep 47 The Church in Br Arch 1983 97 (J Roxan and R Morris) (OS Card Reference). SKE38899.

Sources and further reading

Related records