Aspects of Kentish Local History

Victoria County History of Kent Vol. 3  1932 - Romano-British Kent - Towns - Page 82

Kentish rag and flints often laid roughly aslant, set in a hard brown, pebbly mortar containing occasional fragments of brick; the facing is of squared blocks of Kentish rag, each about 7 in. deep, with mortar joints averaging between 2 in. and 3 in. Occasional lacing-courses of brick are somewhat vaguely recorded. Fisher, in his History of Rochester (p.3), states that particularly in the portion towards ‘the west end of the north wall’ Roman bricks were conspicuous. The wall in Gill’s Yard (adjoining the river at the north corner of the town) had a ‘double bonding-course of tiles,’ but at what height is. not stated. Again, in ‘Miss Spong’s garden,’ close to the southern corner,

Fig. 14.—Plan of Roman Rochester Based on the Ordnance Survey Map, with the sanction of the Controller of H.M. Stationery 0ffice

Payne claimed to have found, on the summit of the wall at a height of 12 ft. or more above the base, the remains of a bonding-course of Roman tiles. If, however, these bonding-courses are not evidence merely of local repairs, they must, at least, have occurred at very infrequent vertical intervals; certainly no trace of them can now be seen, although the wall at ‘Miss Spong’s garden’ still stands much as it stood in Payne’s day. It may be added that there is no record of the occurrence of re-used materials in the structure of the

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