The Roman Worthgate at Canterbury

INVESTIGATIONS AND EXCAVATIONS DURING THE YEAR THE ROMAN WORTHGATE AT CANTERBURY IN May, 1961, deep trenching for a new gas main along the south-east side of Castle Street, as a preliminary to the construction of the new road junction with Wincheap and Rheims Way, provided an interesting cross-section of the city defences, outside No. 28 Castle Street (Castle House). Here it was seen that the foundations of the city wall, 15 ft. wide, were built of large flints well laid in courses in mortar. The three lowest of these were laid in a trench about 1 ft. 6 in. deep cut into a deposit of dark loamy soil on the front, and the gravel metalling of the Roman street at the rear of the structure. This street was 2 ft. 3 in. thick and rested on a band of greyish brown loam representing the earliest occupation soil which extended under the foundations, and in turn rested on the natural brick-earth. (Fig. 6.) Based on the front and rear edges of the flint foundations respectively, were two large roughly hewn blocks of Kentish ragstone, placed one on top of the other without mortar. Between the lowest front and rear blocks was a space 6 ft. long filled with mixed black soil up to modern ground level. At the bottom of this were three courses of flints laid in mortar capped by a single course of Roman tiles covered with a thin spread of mortar. The inner lip of the city ditch lay at a distance of about 7 ft. out from the off-set at the base of the front of the foundation (i.e. at the contemporary ground level). As seen in section the ditch measured 82 ft. 3 in. wide at the top with sides sloping inwards to the 10 ft. level (i.e. the bottom of the modern trench). Due to this the complete profile could not be determined, but it is reasonable to think that the outer side had been modified by more recent landscaping and is not therefore the Roman work. 273 ROMAN WORTHGATE CANTERBURY .....,_ SOIL M!xED SOLt. .... 0UTEA STONE JA.MO Of GATE ,r MORTAR OH􀀑 COURS! ♦ 􀀌--''------✓ SCALI! f .;;;;;; L.... FIG. 6. MIX!O SOIL/ w--iii fuT F.J. W!NS tT OEUN , .., MIXEDSOtt. .......... CITY DITCH MIXED OMK SOU. flU.IHQ ' ' ' ' INVESTIGATIONS AND EXCAVATIONS DURING THE YEAR It is clear that what has been revealed is the south-east side of the Roman Worthgate through which ran the road to Lympne (Portus Lemanis), Stone Street and also joined the road which crossed the Chartham Downs. The gate was mured up in 1548 and prior to its demolition in 1791, was seen and drawn by William Stukeley who published the drawing in his Itinerarium Ouriosum (1724). This shows that the jambs of the gate were built of large blocks of stone, the two lowest courses of which survive today on the south-east side. As the tile course between the blocks in the thickness of the wall is at the same level as the surface of the Roman street it seems that it formed the floor of the guard chamber on that side of the gate and was not a bonding course, for the walls of Roman Canterbury lack that structural feature. It is also certain that the gate was a simple arched opening flush with the wall, and, according to Gostling who saw the blocked arch still standing, had a width of 12 ft. 6 in. and a height at the centre of the arch of some 13 ft. 7 ½ in. or more. FRANK JENKINS, M.A., F.S.A. 275