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considered sufficient evidence of a Roman
gateway here. The accounts of the southern: gateway are a
little more satisfactory. ‘Massive foundations of two walls,
each under the gutters on either side of Boley Hill Street and
parallel to it,’ on the line of the Roman wall, were found
in laying gaspipes in 1891. The walls were 5 ft. thick,38
and were taken to be Roman, but even here’ it must be
remembered that the Norman south gateway stood probably on the
site of the Roman gate. A road apparently leading to this gate
was found beneath the ‘office of the Bishop’s Registrar,
on the east of Boley Hill’ Street, some 35 yds. north of the
gate.39 A ‘strong Roman wall‘ opened
under Boley Hill Street at the same spot, ‘if accurately
described, is too far within the line of the Roman enceinte to
have been a part of the Roman gate, as suggested by Roach’
Smith.40
It may be assumed that the river, here 150 yds.
wide, was spanned in Roman times by a substantial bridge such
as those of which the rnasonry piers have been ‘found in the
Tyne and elsewhere. The exact site of the Roman Bridge at
Rochester, however, is in doubt. The medieval bridge built
about 1392 and pulled down about 1856, stood some 60 yds.
south-west of the present road bridge; but it is known to have
been preceded by a structure described in a record of 1115 as
consisting of ten openings and nine piers of stone, 43 ft.
from centre to centre, and, carrying ’a timber
superstructure 10 ft. wide. The date when this earlier bridge
was built is unknown, although it is worth noting that bridges
consisting of stone piers with a timber roadway were
frequently built by the Romans. With the earlier bridge have
been identified the remains of a stone pier found beneath the
Strood Pier of the present bridge during its erection in 1851.41
It is at least clear, therefore, that prior to the 14th
century some bridge stood upon this site and might on general
grounds be thought to represent the line of the Roman work. On
the other hand, if the road, identified beneath the Guildhall 42
was, in fact, a part of the main street of the Roman town, the
axis would seem to point to a bridge- head somewhat further
north, a possibility which derives some slight support from
the discovery of a large number of coins, apparently Roman, in
the river-bed along this line. In the same connection it
should. be noted that when the Southern Railway bridge was
built immediately to the north of the modern road-bridge
‘very solid foundations of an ancient work were discovered
where no such foundations were looked for.43
These may, however, have been a part of the ancient bridge
already referred to; and on all hands it must be admitted that
the present evidence as to the Roman bridge is too slight for
further discussion.
As to the streets of the Roman town, information
is equally at sea. A little to the north of the present High
Street, as noted above, a Roman road is recorded to have been
found beneath the Guildhall. The section exposed in 1892 at a
depth of 7 ft. showed that the paved surface had disappeared,
but that the successive Roman layers from top to bottom
consisted of round and angular gravel ( 14 in.), flints
(6 in.), rammed gravel ( 12 in.), rammed chalk ( 6 in.), and a
roughly-prepared bed of rammed earth and flints. The road on
the Strood side lay precisely beneath High Street, and was
somewhat
38 Arch.
Cant. xxi, 6.
39 Ibid. xxv, lx.
40 Ibid.
41 For the details of this
discovery, as for, the whole question of the bridge, the
reader is referred to
Arch. Cant. xxxv, 127.
42 See below. Smiles, Lives of the
Engineers, 1874, 11, 44. |