Whether or no the defences of
the fortress followed in detail the lines which we have tried to
visualize for them, the evidence is at least adequate to show
that Dover of the Saxon Shore lay in or about the Market Square,
on the western bank of the Dour. So far we have depended solely
Upon archaeological evidence—mostly evidence recovered by a
single observer within the last dozen years. But Mr. A. W.
Clapham has pointed out83a that there is one particle
of documentary evidence which is relevant to our problem and
happily confirms our general conclusions. It is said that
Eadbald, King of Kent, before 640, founded a monastery ‘in the
castle of Dover,’ and it has been assumed that this monastery
is represented by the surviving Saxon church of St. Mary amongst
the castle buildings on the Eastern Heights. But the structure
of St. Mary’s-in-Castro cannot be earlier than the end of the
tenth century; nor is there a particle of evidence that as early
as the seventh century a ‘castle’ of any kind existed on
that site. Indeed, a reference to a 'castle’ at Dover in the
seventh century can only be interpreted as a reference to the
remains of the Roman fortress; and that fortress, built, as
abundant evidence seems to show, in connexion with the Channel
Fleet, must have been placed within effective distance of the
harbour—i.e., somewhere on the site of the medieval town.84
Here, in fact, was an early Saxon foundation, that of St.
Martins-le-Grand, of which the rebuilt Norman church still
yields stubbornly to the modern builder on the western side of
the Market Square.85 The church lay within the
area of intensive Roman occupation, and well within our
conjectural limits of the Saxon-Shore fortress. It is consistent
with all the evidence, therefore, to suppose, with Mr. Clapham,
that King Eadbald’s church was the first church of St.
Martin’s; and, as slight confirmatory evidence, the discovery
of a tombstone with cross and Runic inscription of early Saxon
date near the east end of St. Martin’s (No. 4) points with
probability to the early Christian use of the site. Confusion
between the Roman ‘ castle’ and the Norman castle on
the Eastern Heights seems, however, subsequently to have arisen.
According to Tanner, Wictred, King of Kent moved the monastery
from the castle to the town in 696, and hence rose the church of
St. Martin. This may be dismissed as a late attempt to bring the
medieval castle ‘into the picture‘ long after the Roman
fortress had been forgotten.
The total disappearance of the Roman defences is
not difficult to explain. In Roman times they seem to have
looked eastwards upon a small lagoon or harbour formed by an
expansion of the Dour, and perhaps aided artificially by a
timber-framed quay on its southern side. After the Roman period
the wind-blown sand and river silt gradually clogged this
harbour and the seaward approach to the fortress. When the
medieval builders arrived, the old site was obsolete. It was now
beyond the reach of shipping, and it was too small. Roman Dover
had been a useful signpost for Channel shipping, and possibly a
permanent station of the Channel Fleet. But Roman traffic,
orientated, perhaps, rather on the Rhine than on the Boulogne-Calais
coast,
83 Arch.
Journ. lxxxvi, 56.
84
One writer has questioned whether the place had any walls in
Roman times, thinking a supposed fort on the Castle Hill enough
defence. But, as already remarked, the existence of that fort is
wholly doubtful, and, if it existed, it was too far off to help
in days before artillery; so exposed a site as Dover Harbour
must have had its walls.
85 See Arch. Cant. iv, I. A
fragment of the church still stands behind the Canton Club. |