natural clay-and-flints, on which it stood,
here sloped eastwards towards King Street, and was covered with
silt and sand and ‘pebbles, rounded chalk and Roman tile,
potsherds with rounded edges, all consolidated by water-action
into a compact mass.’ Over this, and sloping eastwards in
conformity with it, was a layer of black peaty soil, with Roman
bricks, etc. (including a CL.BR. tile), still sharp and unworn.
Above this again was a wedge of sand, thin towards the Roman
masonry, but thickening eastwards towards King Street. Over the
whole was made-ground.
(9) In 1908, during drainage work at the south end
of Church Street (i.e., close to the north-east corner of the
market-place), a massive wall, ‘about 12 ft. thick,’ built
of flint with occasional green sandstone, and bits of tile and
much hard, white mortar, was found. It rested on the natural
surface of clay and flints at a depth of about 8 ft., and rose
to within 2 ft. of the surface. The wall extended ‘from the
direction of Igglesden and Graves to Packham’s Corner’ but
was only seen at one point, where a trench cut through it. On
the south (Castle Street) side of the wall only modern
‘made’ ground was noticed, but on the north (Church Street)
side there was a great medley of Roman material—’ many
cartloads of flints, squared tufa, green sandstone and squared
chalk, Roman concrete, wall-plaster, a millstone of Andernach
lava with mortar adhering, much Roman pottery, and tiles (both
roofing and other), of which three bore respectively the stamps
CL. . ., CL.BR, and AND’ (P1. IX, Xos. 4, 5). This thick layer
of debris extended north-west for about 50 yards and then
thinned out by the passage adjoining St. Mary’s church.
Midway, opposite the entrance to Lloyds Bank in Church Street,
the deposit deepened into the natural clay-and-flints to form a
rubbish-pit or midden, which contained Roman pottery and glass,
two bone pins, fragments of ironwork, burnt slabs of sandstone,
charcoal, and shells of oyster, limpet, mussel, cockle, winkle
and whelk. Near by, opposite the north-east corner of Messrs.
Igglesden and Graves’ premises, but ‘on the east side of
Church Street, during the connecting of a house-drain, a
tufa-faced wall, running approximately north and south, was cut
through. It rested on a thin slab of green sandstone.’
(10) At a distance of 130 yards east of the Market
Square stood until recently (on the former site of Peter
Fector’s house and garden) a gasometer which has now been
replaced by the garage of the East Kent Car Company. When the
gasometer-pit was dug in 1855—6, it was found that, at
a depth of 20 ft., the whole area—100 ft. in diameter—was
crossed by a remarkable framework of massive oak timbers. As
recorded in a lecture given in 1857 by Col. Edward
Knocker to the Dover Museum and Philosophical Society, there
were two timber walls running east and west across the pit; the
eastern end, which was slightly higher than the other, was also
slightly wider, the mean width being 10 ft. These walls were
each composed of four massive’ oak beams of about 1 ft.
scantling, placed one above the other and therefore forming a
solid wall rather more than 4 ft. high. At 11 ft. intervals the
walls were braced by transverse beams, halved or mortised into
them with hardly any bolts or pegs. The whole of the interior of
this framework was packed with shingle, which was not otherwise
found on the site. The extent of the structure is not known
beyond the limits of the pit, for the shafts sunk recently in
the construction of the garage on the site |