depth of 4 ft. or 5 ft., ‘a fine
open space of Roman concrete, the bottom of a system of baths
which, entering at the south-west, crossed the nave and both
aisles and passed out into the churchyard on the north side.’
Again, in 1897, during excavations carried out at the base of
the west tower in connexion with the reparation of the
structure, a hypocaust with soot and wood-ashes was discovered.66
(3) About 50 yards south-west of St. Mary’s
church is a site which was once the yard of the Royal Oak Hotel
and has since been built over successively for the Metropole
garage and the Plaza cinema. Here Mr. Amos reports the
discovery, near the rear of the Metropole Hotel, of a huge chunk
of Roman masonry, built of ragstone, flint and tufa with white
mortar. The masonry lay on a thin layer of Roman made-ground
overlying the clay, and along the south side of the site on this
level were Roman sherds (mostly third or fourth century), tiles,
etc., and much burnt clay. At the south-west corner of the
former yard, a petrol-pit was cut into a tufa-faced wall with a
2 in. offset, but did not expose its depth or width. The mass of
the wall was a jumble of Roman oddments, and there were bits of
coloured wall-plaster, Roman mortar, grooved tiles and the like,
including one tile with CL/BR
(Classis Britannica), the CL reversed as on a tile from
Pevensey. The insertion of a petrol-pump near the New Street
entrance showed that the Roman debris reached the clay here at a
depth of 9 ft. or 10 ft. Subsequently, when the cinema was
built, its sloping floor was carried down to the back of the
tufa wall, but this was not then adequately observed. Mr. Amos
was able, however, to recover from the spoil upwards of a dozen
tiles with the CL.BR or CL .BR stamp; in one case the stamp
occupied a circular field on the tile, somewhat like another
found in 1924 in the Roman villa at Folkestone.
(4.) Market Place, north side. Little is
recorded from this side. The most important discovery—an early
grave-slab with Runic inscription, possibly of the seventh
century—lies outside our scope. But about 30 yards up Cannon
Street, on the east side, under the premises of Messrs. Goulden
and Winds, the process of deepening a cellar brought to light
much mortar, Roman potsherds and rubbish and, at one place,
‘flint boulders in white mortar, almost like a floor.’ Mr.
Amos adds that he has been told of something like this at the
corner-house a little farther up the street, by St. Mary’s
church.
(5) In 1881, when the great collegiate church of
St. Martin-le-Grand, on the west side of the Market Square, was
demolished and the Carlton Club built, remains of a Roman
building were found and were thought (without reason or
probability) to have formed a part of the baths discovered
beneath St. Mary’s, 130 yards away. Rooms with concrete
flooring and good flint walls and hypocausts were uncovered, and
a few yards farther south, on the western fringe of the Market
Square, a tessellated pavement is recorded at a depth of 10 ft.
An interesting bit of sculpture (P1. IX, No. 3), now in Dover
Museum, was found lying on one of the floors first mentioned.
Thisisan undraped female figure, about three-quarters life-size,
in oolite, with face, arms, and feet destroyed. It stands
leaning slightly forward with legs crossed and arms (apparently)
stretched out. The head is wreathed, and drapery hangs round
66 J. Lyon, Arch.
V, 325, and Hist. of Dover (1813), i, ii; Puckle, Arch.
Cant. xx, 120; and information from the verger, Mr. Mathews,
who saw the discoveries in 1897. |