'W E have referred to the general character of the traces
of Roman civilization still remaining in Kent ; we must now say a few words more specially with reference to relics of Roman " * Mr. Roach Smith's Antiquities of Rithborougls, Acculoer, and Lynaiie gives the Et account of these intonation ruins. We have mailed ourselves of the einnirnary. of the results of that gentleman's investigations given in Murray's Kam:Moot for :Kent. cities and military stations. The great feature of Kent, in this resp3et, is its contribution to the chain of fortresses which were under the general command of the Conies of the Saxon Shore or frontier ; PORTUS LEMAN'S, near the modern Lynine ; RUTUPLE, the modern Richborough ; and REGULBIUM, the modern Reculver. The ruins of the first of these ancient castra occupy "a wild and solitary position on the edge of a tract of high ground (the Quarry Hills) overhanging" the northzeastern extremity, of Romney Marsh, just at the point _where this higher ground "begins to turn landward." The ruins now bear the name of Studfall Castle, which name is found applied to ancient ruins in other counties. "The river Lemanis (the Saxon Limene) has been identified with the Rother, which," as we have already seen, "now joins the sea at Rye, having greatly changed its ancient course. It seems doubtful whether it ever flowed near the castrum, but from the high ground above the ruins the bay or estuary, the ancient Port us, now dry land, is distinctly traceable as far as Ilythe.. The sea-sand lies almost on the surface, and affects the colour of the soil throughout.'* "The plan of the castrum was more irregular than that of -either Ratupix or Regulbium, owing, no doubt, to the form of the ground. The east and west sides were straight, that on the north bent upwards in a semicircular form.. On the south, where it overlooks the former harbour, there seems to have been no wall. It had circular towers at intervals in its line of wall. Nearly in the centre of the east side was the Decuman Gate (dis- covered a few years ago), flanked by two circular towers. There were many small postern entrances. The walls which are now best seen are the north and west, large portions of which are yet standing. At the south-west corner is the most perfect tower remaining (ten feet high, forty-five feet in circumference). , The north-east and west .,sides have fallen outwards in masses so con- fused as to render it difficult to trace. their. lines. This was pro- bably the result of landslips, to which this whole district is subject. The stone used is that of the district. . The whole works were as carefully finished as those of the most accurately building railway company. , The walls were probably built at a late_ period of the Roman occupation, as the stones appear to have belonged to earlier buildings. In the Decuman Gate part of an altar was
• disceiered, bearing the inscription', Praefect. Clas. Brit.' rhe letters Cl. Br.' had already been discovered on tiles at Dover.
_ Some few ornaments and weapons, have been also discovered, and some coins, the greater number belonging to the Constantine family." Archbishop Lanfranc used much of the squared stone of the castrum for building the church of Lymne. At the time of the drawing up of the Notitia of the Roman Empire, in which Portus Lemanis, is mentioned, it was garrisoned by the ,Prepoeitus Trimacensitun, a body of soldiers drawn it is believed from Tournay. The present inland position of Portus _Lemanis is one of the landmarks by which we trace the great changes between the present- and former configuration of this coast. There can be little doubt that a portion of Romney Marsh formerly belonged to the domain of the sea, and that the remainder was a sort of debiteable field between earth and water. A still more remark-
table change in the coast line appears to be connected with the two remaining castra of the Saxon Comes. We have already spoken of the estuary which once separated the Isle of Thanet from the mainland. The width and importance of this piece of water in
, Roman and Saxon times must be carefully borne in mind in , reading the history of those periods, or 'we shall form the most . erroneous ideas of the naval enterprises which then took place. It , was then, in fact, the usual passrge for ships from the Continent , of Europe to London, the dangers of the North Foreland being , thus avoided. The estuary seems to have run up the country as . far as Chatham and Ashford, and it hal two openings or mouths to
, the sea ; the north one by Regalbium or Reculver, and the other to the east by Ebbsfleet and Pegwell Bay. It formed indeed towards the latter mouth a great haven, perhaps four miles in width, while in the narrow part the channel was from a mile a.nd.a half to two miles across. In Bede's time it was reduced to three furlongs at the ferry at Sarre. It would appear that the site of the present Sandwich was on an island in the eastern mouth, and Rutupim either stood on a similar but larger island, or at any rate on the extremity of a peninsula stretching out into the haven. The estuary began to fill up at an early period, but as long as the sea continued flowing at the north mouth on the east of Reculver there was still a considerable force of water, which being increased by the river Stour, ran down towards Ebbsfleet and Sandwich in a rapid stream, and served to scour and cleanse the channel, particularly the mouth of it, of those sands which were then beginning to gather in it. The Romans, we know, habitually used it in their expeditions to this island. Thus, according to Ammiagus Marcellinus, Lupicinus, a Roman commander, being despatched into Britain to sepulse_the inroads of the Spotaand. Picts, sailed from Gessoriaemn (Boulogne), in Gallia, toRutupiret and thence to Londinimn ; and :Theedosius passed by the eame .route to repel the Saxons. • In 1052 Earl Harold's _fleet „having plundered the eastern coast of Kent, sailed along the Wantsume, as it was then called, around Thane% and went out at the Genlade, or _north mouth, towards London ; and even. down_ to the latter part ;of ,the . fifteenth century the passage was still navigable for merchant ships. In.the. 1st of Henry VII., however, an Act was passed for the inhabitants of the Isle of Thanet to build a bridge at the place called Sarre Ferry.
Rfirprt,E, whieh commanded the eastern mouth of this passage, is about a mile north fromSandwich—the "Village on the Sands." .Ammiauns calls it.statio tranquilla; and the whole,diatrict :became- -known as the .Littus Rutupinum.• It becdue :well .knoWir tolthe Romans fromtbe. delieateoyaters'found near it.-The name first occurs ut.Lucan's:Pharsq/lain:the middle of the first centiary; and last in the N..otetia (in .the first half of the .fifth century); when. the Legio Secunda Augusta is' gala. toifave been removed thither from Chester. The usurper,-Maximus, in the last Roman days, is called byAusonius the ”Rntupine robber." _Cobra of his and of Carausius, the Comes of the Saxon Shore, have been found here. There was a Castelluin here, very early. 'It now stands en. ad elevation above one of the winding branches of the river Stour. The north wall, the bestpreserved part of the structure, is about 400 feet in length, 30 feet high on the exterior in some places, and in Others 20 feet. The masses of ruin found in ascending to it from 'the -river are those of a return wall, now quite overthrown, and of slower and buttress near the angle of the cliff. At the opposite north-west angle are the remains of a circular tower, and there were originally two square towers on this side of the castrum, nearly equidistant from the circular corner towers, and from a postern in the centre. The great wall at the- postern is 10ft. 8in. thick, the entrance. wall 6ft. 4in. In the west wall the prificiPal:op6ning is the- Decuman Gate, where a complete stone pavenieni,' long • since removed, was laid open towards the middle, of 'the last century. Beyond it south are the remains' of 'a square tower. These square towers ,throughout the -fortress ssiere -solid• to the extent of nearly eight feet from ,the foundaticin,' hollow- in the centre, and united to the main wall again .at-. lien 'top. t It is Pro- bable they contained a -room with loopholes for ...Watchers. r-The holes in the, main, wall within these towers seem to have served for the insertion of timber. At the south-west corner of. the- west wall was a circular tower, of ,which only the foundation reinains ; the south wall has a square tower to*.ards the-ceittre:e-There Was no wall toward the cliff, which itself served as (prOteetion. The great body of the wall consists of boulders,- sandstone, &c., arranged with much precision, and cemented with mortar formed of lime, grit, sea-shells, and powdered tiles. The external facing where it remains is formed of regular courses of squared grit and Portland stone; bonded at: irregular.: intervals by double rows of large flat tiles made of well-tempered clay. Internally the facing is chiefly composed . of flints. Within the area, not far from the north-east corner, a ridge in the form of a cross will be observed rising slightly above the ground. This is the mark of a super- structure which has entirely disappeared, and which was based OD a solid rectangular platform of masonry, underground, 144 feet long, 104 feet wide, and 5 feet thick. Beneath this platform is
an extensive subterranean building, nothing at all analogous to which has been discovered in any other Roman station. Within' the walls of the fortress fragments of pillars and cornices in a fine
white marble and of mural paintings have been found, and the whole ground within and around is still strewed with pieces of tiles and broken pottery. There were probably numerous villas without the walls, "the foundations of one having been laid bare in matting the railway below the cliff." Not less than 140,00 coins have been found at different periods at Richborough, of which the greater part belong to the ten years when the island was independent under Carausius and Allectue. "On the highest point of the hill, about 460 yards from the south-west angle of the castrum, are the remains of a castrensian amphitheatre. It was walled, and formed an ellipse, the longer diameter measuring 200 feet, the shorter 166, and there were three entrances. On the ruined wall of the west entrance a skeleton was found,twith a bursa coin of Con- stantine under the right hand. The site is still, as Leland describes it, wonderful fair,' but must have been far more so when the sea swept up on one side toward Sandwich, and on the other toward / Reculver." The ruins of REGULBIUM, which in the time of the Notitia was garrisoned by the first cohort of the Vetasii (supposed to be Brabantese), under the command of a tribune, are not uncovered to the same extent as those of Rutupite. "The south and east walls are yet standing, but much shattered, and covered with ivy, elder bushes, and wild fig trees. The north wall has been entirely destroyed by the sea, and much of the west has been levelled. When entire the castrum occupied about eight acres. There are no traces of towers. The entrance was in the centre of the west wall. The walls when perfect with their facings were about twelve feet thick. They are built of flints and pebbles inter- mixed with layers of septaria,—stones found in the London clay, like flints in chalk, and probably brought from the Isle of Sheppey. There are no tiles," —in which respect the build- ing resembles the North rather than _the South of England. There have been great vicissitudes in the proximity of Reculver to the sea. In Leland's time (Henry VIII.), when the passage between Thanet and the mainland had become blocked up, the sea was distant a quarter of a mile from the castrum. "In 1780 it had advanced close under it, and the north wall was over- thrown by a fall of the cliff. It is still gaining on the land, but the force of the waves has been checked by an artificial causeway of atones and large wooden piles driven into the sand."
Another relic of Roman times of some interest on the coast of Kent is the remnant of the Pharos at DUREX (the present Dover) on the Castle Hill. But we must hasten inland. Roadways from Portus Lemanis, Dubrie and the shore opposite to Rutupim met in a city called D orcovEaNust, occupying the entire site of the present Canterbury, and buried some six to nine feet below the present surface of the soil. It must have been the Roman capital for this eastern part of Kent. "Part of the Roman walls were standing a century ago, and tesselated pavements and other antiquities discovered there at different times show its importance." A road left Darovernum on the north-east Londonwards, and proceeded to a town called DUROLEVUM, which Mr. Thomas Wright iden- tifies with Davington, but which was probably one of those unimportant stations which have left scarcely st trace behind.
• "It then led to a more important town called DUROBRIVIE, on the site of the present city of Rochester," on the river then called the Madus, and now the Medway. The road then proceeded to a town called VAGNIACiE, the site of which is doubtful, antiquarians generally placing it in the neighbourhood of Southtleet. From this the road led to Londinitnn. There is the site of a Roman castrum, if not of a town, on Holwood nin, near Bromley, which some have identified with Noviostaous, but we prefer to adopt the opinion of Professor Pearson, that this latter was the name of the present Chichester, its other name, REGNUM, being originally a cognomen referring to the tribe of whose territory it was the capital. The absence of Roman stations from the other parts of Kent is easily accounted for by the extent to which they were- covered by the woods of the great Anderida Forest. Such, then, is the general picture of Roman CAlirrium.
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