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 a building, the foundations of a large buttressed building were located, just to the north of the painted house. Three sections of the foundations were uncovered; the northernmost of these was traced for a distance of 11.8m, the central for 23.62m and the southern for 21.1m running east-west across the site. Both the northern and central of these three walls had integral buttresses, the function of which remains unclear. (location accurate to the nearest 2m based on available information)

Monument Types

• Wall Foundation (Foundations of structure C8, Roman - 180 AD to 200 AD?)

Associated Finds

• SHERD (Roman - 70 AD to 210 AD)
• SHERD (Roman - 75 AD? to 150 AD?)
• COIN (Roman - 117 AD to 136 AD)
• BOWL (Roman - 180 AD to 200 AD)
• BUCKLE (Roman - 180 AD to 200 AD)
• HANDLE (Roman - 180 AD to 200 AD)
• NAIL CLEANER (Roman - 180 AD to 200 AD)
• RING (Roman - 180 AD to 200 AD)
• STYLUS (Roman - 180 AD to 200 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 a building, the foundations of a large buttressed building were located, just to the north of the painted house. Three sections of the foundations were uncovered; the northernmost of these was traced for a distance of 11.8m, the central for 23.62m and the southern for 21.1m running east-west across the site. Both the northern and central of these three walls had integral buttresses, the function of which remains unclear.

The eastern end of this structure lay beyond the limits of excavation while western end butted the earlier foundations of the tufa block building and there is a 2.95m gap in all of them for the later Roman Saxon Shore fort. The foundations had been laid in a vertical sided trench between 42cm and 65cm wide and between 64cm and 1.15m deep. They were constructed of roughly laid flints in a cream mortar, with occasional lumps of tufa and chalk. The 6 integral buttresses on the northern and central walls seem to be uniformly spaced and form pairs on the opposing walls. No associated floors or heating systems were located and a lack of decorative detail found in association with it, may suggests a simple functional purpose rather than a domestic. The presence of buttresses is unusual but they may indicate that its form was a double colonnaded building.

There was a large amount of dating evidence located in association with this building, particularly from the underlying soil deposits and fill of the robber trenches of buildings predating this one. This material gives an approximate construction date of this structure of A.D. 180. (1)

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

Sources and further reading