|
the same inference as about Worth Gate.
Pillbrow found a well under its archway, but no definite
argument can be based on this. Immediately outside he
uncovered foundations which fit best with the medieval
drawbridge (Arch. xliii, 157).
(17) In Rose Lane, near St. Mary Bredin
Church, was discovered an interesting bit of inscribed Roman
glass. Under the church, says Brent, occurred a rude, unbaked
cup of pre-Roman date (Cant. Olden Time, 6). Further
east, at the Middle Class Schools (Simon Langton’s Schools)
on the site of the White Friars, and near the centre of the
playground, was found in 1886, 4 ft. below the surface, a
‘floor of red brick tesserae in Roman cement,’ 4 ft. or 5
ft. square, but (as the discoverers thought) only part of
a much larger whole. Broken hypocaust-tiles occurred a few
yards away, and suggest that the floor may be Roman, and not,
as its depth rather indicates, medieval (Dowker in Arch.
Cant. xvii, 36; xix, 101). Finally, in Gravel Walk, at 8
ft. deep, Pillbrow cut into a line of earthen
waterpipes with flanged joints by which they fitted into one
another (Arch. xliii, 160, no. 25). Such waterpipes
were used during the Roman period in Britain, and the depth
favours a Roman date for these, but the specimen of them now
at Worthing does not look very Roman.
C. Remains north of High Street and the
Parade, described from east to west.
(18) Burgate Lane yielded in 1867—8 a few
undescribed coins and a line of waterpipes of uncertain age,
ending abruptly against a brick wall which crossed the lane at
right angles (Arch. xliii, 163); Canterbury Lane
yielded a bronze ring and stylus (Cant. Olden Time, pp.
31, 49, plate ii, 6). But definitely Roman remains are rare in
the district east of Iron Bar Lane. In that thoroughfare, on
its east side and at the Burgate Street end, and also in
Burgate Street itself, the drainage excavations of 1867 and
the erection of a wine cellar for the Crown Inn and of a Roman
Catholic church in 1874, revealed a large deposit of black
vegetable matter, occasionally more than 20 ft. in
depth, resembling the deposits in the Parade and Watling
Street (secs. 6 and 15), probably, like them, an
ancient water channel, and perhaps continuous with them. This
deposit was full of small objects, Roman and medieval. Among
the former were: a massive gold ring bearing an onyx engraved
with a Ganymede, a few coins, some coloured glass, much
pottery (embossed Samian and ruder wares, a lamp, part of a
colander and spindlewhorls), and some bronze pieces, pins,
bell, armlet, parts of a chain and a balance, and a circular
disc or stud of a not uncommon type decorated with a chequer
pattern of blue and white enamel work. On one side of the
deposit we are told that there were ‘parallel lines of
subterranean walls’; the notice, in its uselessness, is
typical of the records of Roman Canterbury. For these finds
see Arch. xliii, 156, 162, and plate xxiii (ring); Canterbury
Olden Time, 15; Proc. Soc. Antiq. vi, 377; for the
enamelled disc, Cant. Olden Time, 46, plate ix, 2,
hence C. R. Smith, Coll. Antiq. vii, 202, plate xx, 2.
Another object, probably from the black deposit, is a square
bronze enamelled ornament, ‘possibly Late Celtic,’ found
about 1874 (Proc. Soc. Antiq. Ser. II, vi, 377; Cant.
Olden Time, 6, 46, plate x, 3, hence Smith, Coll. Antiq.
vu, 203, plate xxi). Other discoveries in Iron Bar Lane
were less interesting, since uncertain in date—a well under
the Roman Catholic church, a wall crossing the lane close to
Burgate Street, and some masonry, already noticed, close to
the Parade (5).
(19) Burgate Street itself has yielded much.
In 1868, at 18 yds. west of Iron Bar Lane and opposite 54
Burgate Street, was found 8 ft. deep a mosaic, about 4 ft. square,
coloured in white, red and blue or bluish-black and decorated
with a conventional two-handled cup inside a circle of
guilloche (braid-work) and a square outer border of lozenge
ornament; beneath were two layers of concrete, brickdust,
chalk, and pebbles; on the floor, lay much burnt building
debris. See Arch. xliii, 162, nos. 31 and 32; Brent in Proc.
Soc. Antiq. Ser. II, v, 128; Gent. Mag. 1868, i,
666; Cant. Olden Time, 15, 27, plate xii, hence Morgan,
Mosaics, 154; the mosaic is now in the museum. Further
finds made in 1871 at the same depth apparently belonged to
the same building as this mosaic. They lay partly beneath the
south sidewalk of Burgate Street and partly in a yard opening
on to it, and consisted of a wall of solid concrete, thought
to be the south wall of the building, and a tessellated floor
bearing a plain geometrical pattern in red, white and black,
which had sunk at one end and had there been overlaid by a
coarser patch in red. Under the floor was ‘a small black
mortuary urn,’ perfect; whether it contained a burial, or
whether the term ‘mortuary’ is used loosely, is uncertain.
Traces of other rooms and mosaics were noted near but not
examined (J. Brent in Proc. Soc. Antiq. v, 128). West
of this, by the end of Butchery Lane, Pillbrow found ‘a kind
of floor of York stone’ of indeterminate age, with Roman
coins below it. In Butchery Lane itself he observed that
‘all the coins found appeared to have been more than usually
burnt’ (Arch xliii, 162—3, plan no. 33).
(20) Several finds are recorded from Mercery
Lane, notably a large altar of Folkestone stone, found
somewhere in this lane, in two widely separated pieces (Arch.
Cant. xv, 348; Cant. Olden Time, ‘6); the date of
the find and its character are not recorded, and the altar
itself has naturally vanished. Other finds made near the
Christ Church Gate are less satisfactory. Pillbrow found a |