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some circular bits of bone. See J. Brent in
Soc. Antiq. Proc. Ser. II, i, 330; Arch. Cant. iv,
34; Cant. Olden Time, 14, 32, 44,48,52 and plates v.
1,2,5 (bracelets), vi (glass beads); Cant. Mus. Catal 45,
pl. 1. A writer in Gent. Mag. 1863 (1),. 355, records
as from ‘lately found graves,’ two Roman coins, each in a
small iron box, a key of’ bright white metal,’ an iron pin
and a wooden comb; this seems a distorted version of the
preceding. . In 1883, in excavating near the railway station,
thirty skeletons were dug up 5 ft. to 10 ft. deep.
They lay with their feet to the east (as far, as could be
judged), and by one of them were traces of wood, i.e., of a
coffin, two armlets, both on one arm, two. or three rings, a
fibula, a coin, a bit of embossed Samian, a black urn and some
curious flints. (C. Brent in Brit. Arch. Assoc. Journ. xxxix,
406; hence Antiquary, viii, 266, etc.). In 1901 a
richer find was made in Martyrs’ Field, where a grave
contained a bronze jug, 8 in. high, with ornamented handle, a
‘libation bowl’ or pan 7½ in. in diameter, also
with ornamented handle, three bronze armlets, some bronze
tweezers, a bronze implement fitted with a ‘small double
moveable prong, a glass ‘toilet phial’ and three earthen
vessels (F. Bennett Goldney, Proc. Soc. Antiq. xviii,
279, with plates not giving the exact provenance; the jug and
bowl are in the Cant. Mus.) (P1.
XIII, Nos. 2-5). From the same quarter came a bronze
statuette of a common, type of Minerva, found in Martyrs’
Field, now also in the Museum, and an oval brooch, formed by
an amethyst or similar stone rising conically from a border of
plated gold engraved with diagonal lines, found about i 86o:
described Brit. Arch. Assoc. Journ. xvi, 324, pl. 23
(4.), and briefly by J. Brent,’ Arch., Cant. iv, 35; Proc.
Soc. Antiq. Ser. II, i, 330 (miscalling it Anglo-Saxon),
and Cant. Olden Time, 46, p1. ix, 3; hence C. R. Smith,
Collection Ant. iq. vii, 20 3, and plate. Two similar
brooches are recorded from Swaffham in Norfolk (V.C.H. i,
321) and Wickham Brooke in Suffolk (Gent. Mag. 1788,
ii, 702); with the latter were found Constantine coins, and
the type of brooch seems of that period..
5. The St. Martin’s Hill cemetery. In
1926, during the preliminary excavations for, a housing scheme
on the Littlebourne road, adjacent to the Mill House Inn and
about 400 yds. from St. Martin’s Church, a Roman
cremation-cemetery was discovered in and near the new Windmill
Road. A dozen or more burials seem to have been disturbed, and
the pottery, now in. the Canterbury Museum, is wholly or
mostly of 2nd-century date. Intrinsically the most remarkable
piece is a pot-lid with a cupped handle and rough but bold
figures of a stag and. hounds applied to the main upper
surface. A Samian dish (a late example of form 31, probably of
late 2nd- or, 3rd-century date) bears on the underside of the
base a graffito resembling the Chi-Rho in its supposedly later
form; but it is not recorded whether this particular dish
forms a part of a grave-group (Arch. ‘Cant. xl, 97; Ant.
Journ. vii, 321).
6. Isolated burials, including some of
uncertain date.
(i) A rude sarcophagus of uncemented bricks and
tiles, containing human bones, was met with in the drainage
works of 1860—1 under High Street, opposite the Medical
Hall, lying at right angles to the present street line, midway
between the supposed Roman foundations at the County Hotel and
those at the Fleur-de-Lis (Brent in Arch. Cant. iv, 36,
and Proc. Soc. Antiq. Ser. II, i, 327). There seems no
clear reason for calling this Roman.
(ii) A Roman urn containing ashes, some glass
beads, pins, and a bone needle were found under the garden of
a house near to St. Margaret’s Church, apparently No. 31,
St. Margaret’s Street, immediately south of the church
(Brent in Arch. Cant. iv, 28, and Cant. Olden Time, 42).
(iii) A small black burial urn, with Samian and
Upchurch fragments near it, was found in 1871 in Burgate
Street, under a yard between Iron Bar Lane and the Corn
Exchange, 10 ft. deep and below two Roman mosaics which lay
one above the other, p. 66 (Brent in Proc. Soc. Antiq. v,
128, and briefly Cant. Olden Time, 42).
(iv) A ‘Roman mortuary urn, filled with burnt
bones,’ was found 8 ft. deep in, what seemed alluvial
soil, under St. George’s Street close to the church. The
soil below contained skulls of bos longifrons and a
small species of boar (Brent in Arch. Cant. iv, 36, and
briefly Cant. Olden Time, 20, 42; Proc. Soc. Antiq. Ser.
II, i, 328).
(v) A skeleton lying east and west was found in
1867—8 in Mercury Lane, near the Christ Church Gate of the
Cathedral Close, 7 ft. deep, in black mould (Pillbrow
in Arch. xliii, 162). There seems no reason for calling
this Romano-British.
(vi) In St. Peter’s Street, midway between St.
Peter’s Grove and the Black Griffin, was found in 1867—8,
at 8 ft. deep, the skeleton of a tall, strong man, feet to the
west, wrapped in clay, protected on the sides by large rough
stones and covered with flat red tiles; near were Roman coins
and potsherds and a goat’s skull and horns (Arch. xliii,
152, plan no. 88).
(vii) At the same period ‘a black urn
containing calcined bones, a bottle and a saucer’ were
unearthed between the river Stour and the schools in St.
John’s Place, Northgate Street (ibid. 154, no. 91 on plan).
(viii) At the corner of the Borough and Palace
Street, a black vessel containing burnt bones was found in
1867—8, and a little further south, about the same time, a
more curious discovery was made, at 9 ft. deep—burnt bones,
a bit of metal, and a bit of’ something allied to very fine
porcelain,’ |