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all laid between two iron bars, each 15 in.
long by 2 in. wide by ¼ in. thick, and covered by an inverted
bowl in which the actual bowl was made of wrought bronze, and
has mostly perished, while the handles and base were of cast
bronze and have survived (ibid. 161, with plate, here
reproduced. The interment is plainly Roman, however
misdescribed.
(ix) A small red vase, with a head decorating the
mouth (a late type of pottery), was found in Broad Street in
1849, seemingly in connection with a burial; it is now in
Liverpool Museum (cf. Brit. Arch. Assoc. Journ. v,
337).
(x) In Lower Bridge Street, between Ivy Lane and
the New Dover Road, the drainage trenches in 1867—8
revealed, 6 ft. deep, a lead coffin coated with lime and
wrapped in clay, containing the skeleton of a young girl,
lying with head to north, on a bed of lime. The coffin itself,
14. in. by 56 in. in size, bore on the lid a raised
pattern of ropes, running diagonally, and roses, common on
such Roman coffins (Arch. xliii, 160; C. R. Smith in Arch.
Cant. xiv, 35, plate). In Gent. Mag. 1868, i,
369, other coffins are stated to have come to light at the
same place and time.
(xi) Black vases containing burnt bones were
found in 1867—8 in an extensive deposit of black vegetable
mould under Wading Street (p. 65), just within Riding Gate,
and also a silver spoon and boars’ tusks which have
presumably nothing to do with the burials (Arch. xliii,
157, plate of the spoon).
(xii) Outside Riding Gate, a little way down the
Old Dover Road, an urn was found at the same time with
animals’ bones (ibid.).
(xiii) The handle of a Roman bronze mirror is
said to have been found in 1864 in a stone coffin, just
outside Riding Gate, near the site of St. Edmund’s Church
(Brent in Proc. Soc. Antiq. Ser. II, iii, 55; compare Cant.
Olden Time, i 118, 259). Many medieval stone coffins, from
the church, were found here three or four years later in the
drainage works, and the provenance of the mirror-handle may
have been mistaken or misstated. Still the object itself may
well have come from a Roman grave.
(xiv) Lastly, the fragment of a tomb-slab was
found in Stour Street in 1911. The first three of the
surviving letters are uncertain, but just enough remains to
suggest that the slab was erected by a mother to her daughter (Journ.
Rem. Studies, xiv, 246). The stone is now in the
Canterbury Museum.
7. Of uncertain origin. Canterbury Museum
contains a Roman tombstone of unrecorded origin—in this
resembling many other objects in that museum. It is a slab of
calcareous limestone, 14 in. high, 4¾—5¾ in. wide, and 1¾
in. thick, with letters 11—14 in. high, inscribed:
D(IS)
M(ANBUS) S(ACRUM) P(UBLIA) VAL(ERIA) MAXIMINA, ANN (ORUM) VI,
OPP(IA) VALE RIA ET S(EXTUS) POM(PEIUS) CAPRATINUS FILIAE
PIENTI
SSIMAE F(E)C(ERVNT) S(IT) T(IBI) T(ERRA) L(EVIS).
Despite irregularities in the nomenclature, the
stone may be genuine. Its provenance is un-known, but may well
be Italy. Brent’s Catalogue (Cant. 1875, p.
29) prints it (not quite accurately) without giving any
origin, and the Museum Donation Books, searched back to
contain no reference to it.. It does not resemble a stone from
Rome or Italy: it might be Gaulish or local; in any case it
seems worth recording.
3. ROCHESTER
The dominant
geographical feature of North Kent in its central portion is
the winding Medway. This river, still tidal as far as
Allington lock, and navigable by fair-sized barges even above
Maidstone, bordered sometimes with marsh and sometimes with
tall hills, cuts a sharp, sinuous furrow across the north of
the county. In particular it affects traffic. It is very
rarely fordable, and spots where its width and its banks agree
to suggest bridges are few and important. Of these spots the
most famous is that which is nearest to the sea, where
Rochester Bridge connects Rochester and Chatham with Strood
and Frindsbury. There has been a bridge here since Roman days.
The Romans, laying out their roadway from the port of
Richborough to Canterbury and thence along the fertile margin
of the North Downs to London, directed its line upon this
convenient spot. And, before long, the bridgehead became the
focus of a considerable Romano-British population.
In the absence of evidence to the contrary, it
may be assumed at present that this new bridgehead population
formed the first significant settlement upon the site. But,
apart from the incidence of the river-crossing, the site |