Richborough: Results from Survey and Excavation, 2001

The well-known site of Richborough has long been characterised as a military site. Its history is, however, more complex than this. Ever since Leland, it has been apparent that the hill around the walls of the Saxon shore fort had been occupied. The terms vicus and civilian settlement have been applied to this area, implying that the settlement was at all times an adjunct to a military installation. The excavations undertaken by J.P. Bushe Fox in the 1920s themselves suggest otherwise, as the Claudian bridgehead and supply base were overlain by streets and buildings of urban character, around the great quadfrons arch. The fortification of the arch with triple ditches, and the subsequent Saxon Shore fort, were apparently superimposed upon the street pattern in the mid and late third century. The quadfrons marked Richborough as the official gateway to Britain.

Over the last few years a partnership project involving the Universities of Kent, Southampton and Cambridge, Kent County Council, and the Centre for Archaeology of English Heritage has been established to look at Richborough in new ways. It has several aims relating to the landscape of Richborough island, changes in the palaeogeography of the area and the infilling of the Wantsum Channel. It seeks to understand Iron Age, Roman and early Medieval settlement, and subsequent landscape development along the shores of the Wantsum Channel, and to enhance our knowledge of Iron Age, Roman and early Medieval settlement along the southern side of the Wantsum Channel between Sandwich/Worth in the east and Ickham and the River Stour in the west, in order to gain a fuller understanding of the context within which the Roman settlement was situated. Not least of the aims is to characterise the settlement surrounding the excavated Saxon Shore fort, to obtain a detailed understanding of the ancient topography of Richborough island and to try to locate and investigate the harbour. It is this final aim which has been addressed by the work in 2001.

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Thus far three main techniques have been used. The work has been undertaken by various parts of the Projects Division of English Heritage. In January 2001, magnetometry and resistivity surveys were conducted on the amphitheatre. Resistivity proved to be the most effective technique here, and the identity of the amphitheatre was confirmed. It was of classic elliptical shape, with entrances at the ends of the ellipse. Unusual were a pair of opposed circular ditches on each side of the short axis. Radar survey conducted in July showed that these features were more deeply founded than the rest of the amphitheatre. They are tentatively identified as towers, though the possibility that they might be shrines or elaborate entrances still remains. Magnetometry proved successful in identifying streets and buildings around the amphitheatre, and was extended through September, to cover 21ha of the area around the fort and amphitheatre. Additional data were produced by aerial photographic analysis. Both techniques showed streets, buildings and enclosures. Watling Street was one of two principal roads, along which buildings were ranged. Watling Street was apparently the axis of a street grid, four insulae of which were taken to build the Saxon Shore fort. Behind the street frontage was a complex pattern of enclosures, which may be field systems, and are conceivably Iron Age in date. Much more analysis is needed.

Finally, two small excavation areas were opened up. Trench A was designed to re-examine one of two small temples excavated by Bushe-Fox in 1926. This area [pg13]demonstrated that the temples were probably bullt early in the history of the site, but were demolished, and lay ln an area of rubbish pitting by the mid-fourth century. This has implications concerning the early ritual status of the gateway to Britaln, but may also inform the decline and shrinkage of the settlement . A fea ture which pre-dated the temples may have been a prehistoric field boundary. Trench B was situated on the edge of the cliff to the east of the island. It showed that the land-form today is very different to that of the early Roman period, with 800mm of Roman strata (much of it make-up dumping) underlying 1.20m of colluvial deposits. The reason for the depth of colluvium is hard to find - possibly the area of the trench occupied a natural gully in the side of the island. At all events, it seems at least possible that the flank of the island was originally a shallow slope down to a sandy beach. This will be further explored this year, but suggests that the Claudian ditches, far from being the west ern side of a large, and much eroded fort, were actually the defences of a linear strip of beach upon which the Claudian vessels were drawn up.