Letters to the Editor, Winter 2006

Dear Editor

Roman Buildings in the Faversham Area

It was most interesting to read about the recent work on two Roman buildings in the Faversham area in the last issue of the KAS Newsletter. One reports on the discovery of a ‘rare octagonal bath-house’ (page 14). In fact, this precise Roman building was really discovered and partially excavated by the Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit in 1986 under my direction. The discovery was also listed in our publication Archaeology in the Front Line published in 2002 (site no.80 at Bax farm).

Of greater interest was the reported discovery of a wall of a Roman building, by survey and trial excavation, at nearby Sheldwich. The photo (page 15) shows only the bottom three courses of pilae tiles surviving to wall height of a hypocausted room. Clearly, this pilae stack would originally have been 12-20 courses high so that the corresponding Roman floor, above it, would have been at about present ground level. This has major implications for the rest of the site, for, apart from any countersunk hypocausts, the floors and most of the walls will have gone, probably by ploughing and robbing over centuries. This is why so much debris showed up on the surface. In fact, we found exactly this when we substantially excavated the Roman villas at nearby Faversham (in 1965) and Blacklands (in 1995).

Our Faversham villa was fully published in 1968 and both our Bax Farm and Blacklands sites are due for publication towards the end of this year.

BJ Philp
Director, Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit