Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

During a series of extensive rescue excavations, ahead of development in Dover’s town centre undertaken by Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit two lengths of tufa block walling were located at the north eastern end of the Bingo Hall/ Painted House site. It overlay the two earlier enclosures uncovered at the site and the painted house and buttressed building were subsequently built against it. (location accurate to the nearest 2m based on available information)

Monument Types

• WALL (Roman - 160 AD? to 250 AD?)

Associated Finds

• SHERD (Roman - 69 AD to 96 AD)
• SHERD (Roman - 120 AD to 280 AD)
• FLUE TILE (Roman - 160 AD? to 250 AD?)
• WALL PLASTER (Roman - 160 AD? to 250 AD?)

Full description

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(summarised from publication)

During a series of extensive rescue excavations, ahead of development in Dover’s town centre undertaken by Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit two lengths of tufa block walling were located at the north eastern end of the Bingo Hall/ Painted House site. It overlay the two earlier enclosures uncovered at the site and the painted house and buttressed building were subsequently built against it.

The two walls appeared to form the south west corner of a building with an underlying hypocaust, the east of these two walls was traced for a distance of 6.7m while the south was traced for 2.27m. They were constructed of squared tufa blocks, with occasional greensand and flint set in a hard white mortar for the facing and flint, again set in a hard white mortar, for the core. Both were 94cm wide and survived to a maximum height of 98cm (five courses) and had un-mortared flint foundations 30cm deep. A 1.08m length of an associated east-west cross wall was also located, just to the north of the southern wall, this appears to have been a later insertion. An opus signinum floor was uncovered, this overlay a hypocaust heating system which had been substantially robbed and filled with rubble. This rubble contained a significant amount of painted wall plaster which presumably fell from the surrounding walls, at least two designs were represented. Much of this building has been destroyed by the later Roman Saxon Shore Fort.(1)

<1> Philp, B, 1989, The Roman House with Bacchic Murals at Dover (Monograph). SKE24004.

Sources and further reading

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