Further Light on Roman Broadstairs
In the summer of 2009 an excavation took place by the Trust for Thanet Archaeology on a development site overlooking the harbour at Broadstairs. The excavation uncovered more evidence that a major Roman settlement was located on the east coast of Thanet. The remains of a cellared building were discovered near the southern end of Stone Road, only a short distance from a building found near the same road at Stone Gap in 2004 (Moody 2007). Since the 19th century, Roman cremations, burials, and smaller settlement sites, have been found on the gently sloping hillside between the two buildings uncovered in the recent archaeological digs. The archaeological evidence is building a picture of a populous area where there were several major buildings.
Although the building discovered this summer has suffered from later terracing of the site, a sequence of features has been established showing the progress of Roman settlement in the valley overlooking the bay at Broadstairs.
The earliest feature was a steep sided rectangular pit, excavated into the chalk. The pottery from the fills indicated an early Roman date for this feature, which was regular enough in plan to have been a cellar. Later the backfills of the cellar were cut by the foundation for a wall, constructed of water-worn cobbles laid over courses of massive flint nodules. These large cobbles formed a right angled foundation with one end pressed against the northern face of the earlier cellar cutting. It seems that the material filling the earlier feature was not well compacted and the new wall subsided into the deposit creating a steep angle in profile.
It is possible that the flint wall encountered was built as a deep foundation to some later building whose floor levels had been raised above the upper edge of the cellar cut. The extra bracing may have been required to support the corner of the building where it crossed the fill of the earlier cellar.
Further to the north-east another steep sided cut into the chalk marked the location of a second cellar. A raised ledge survived and on the southern and eastern edges of the cut, supporting courses of rounded flint cobble, held within chalky silt that perhaps replaced an original clay bonding. On the eastern side, the wall was constructed in two stretches, orientated at slightly different angles and tapering to only a single course at the northern end. The two walls were separated by another massive flint nodule standing upright and possibly acting as a pad for a post from a superstructure above. Later the cellar had been backfilled with compact, gritty chalk silt. The angle at the south-east corner had been destroyed by a modern trench. A third deep cutting into the chalk had cut away the chalk edges of the first cellar, demonstrating clearly that it was of a later phase. This cut formed a rounded rectangle in plan, with a flat base and steeply sloping sides. Again this structure appears to have been a cellar, associated with a superstructure long since cleared by the activity on the site over many years.
A final phase of activity on the site in the Roman period was demonstrated by a chalk-capped pit, cut through the fill of the construction trench for the western flint wall, and a second larger pit cut through the backfill of the northern cellar, probably removing part of its original western edge. Massive wall stones were dumped at the base of this pit, and dispersed irregularly throughout the fill. Above the lowest deposit of stones was a thick layer of ashy material.
FRONT PAGE: Some of the pottery from cellar 3. (Inset) Excavating Structure 1.
containing oyster and whelk shells as well as animal bones and other domestic debris. Interspersed with this material were large sherds and segments of pottery vessels. The pots must have been nearly complete when they were deposited; odd sherds from later fills completed the partial remains of some of the vessels. The pottery ranged from a very large comb-decorated storage jar, a well preserved mortaria, dishes, bowls and cups. At least one decorated Samian bowl was present along with a small undecorated cup, together with dishes in Dorset Black Burnished ware. Rather than a deposit of rubbish it appears that a group of pots from a kitchen or store had been tipped into the hollow with the burnt debris and midden material. The quantity of stone present perhaps indicates the destruction of the building above the cellar. One of the few finds of roof tiles was also made near to the dumped pottery. The third cellar was also filled with layers of chalky silts interspersed with compact deposits of building stone, capped near the top with a very dense deposit of large rounded cobbles. Fine quality pottery from these layers indicated that they originated in a building of high status.
Post excavation work is now progressing on the finds and site archive, but there are already some striking parallels with the building found in 2004. Both sites preserved what had once been underground elements of buildings, cellars lined with coursed water-rolled cobble stones. A similar deep Roman pit or cellar also preserving large quantities of large building stones within its fill was discovered by the Trust at Upton in 2006 (Moody 2007). Although little could be determined of the nature of any building in the area, Upton is located on the trackway that follows the chalk ridge from the north-eastern tip of Thanet, curving west toward Sarre (Moody 2008). The valleys occupied by the buildings at Stone Gap and Broadstairs rise to reach this trackway north of the Upton site.
All the sites were truncated, with the superstructure long since destroyed. What remained of the underground structures suggests the buildings were of considerable size and sophistication, lasting through a number of structural phases. At the building in Stone Gap quantities of painted plaster indicated a rich decorative finish, comparable with the plasterwork from the Villa at Minster. Wall tumble there sealed demolition material and evidence for a fire in the last phase of occupation; this was deposited over a number of small ovens which suggested the cellar was part of a kitchen or bakery. The destruction phases at Stone Gap indicated an abrupt end to the site in the later third century. Although the vessels in the late pit cut through the building, those recently discovered have not yet been firmly dated, the presence of Dorset Black Burnished Ware dishes parallels the later assemblage at Stone Gap and may be evidence of a similarly abrupt ending, explaining the completeness and range of the vessels. Further research is needed to draw together the sites in the area but already the strategic significance of the east coast of Thanet and the North Foreland peninsula provide clues to the purpose and character of Roman settlement along this coast. The parallels between the three sites at Upton, Stone Gap and Broadstairs now contribute a considerable body of evidence to the understanding of the Roman settlement of Thanet’s east coast.
Ges Moody
References:
Moody, G. A. 2006. Proposed Residential Development, Land at Upton House, Vale Road, Broadstairs, Kent. Archaeological Assessment Report. Unpubl. Trust for Thanet Archaeology Report
Moody, G. A. 2007. Iron Age and Romano-British Settlement at Bishop’s Avenue, Broadstairs, Archaeologia Cantiana, CXXVII, p.197-212.
Moody, G. A. and Boast, E. J. 2007. Land adjacent to Bleak House, Fort Road, Broadstairs. Archaeological Evaluation Report. Unpubl. Trust for Thanet Archaeology Report
Moody, G. 2008. The Isle of Thanet from Prehistory to the Norman Conquest. Tempus/History Press. Stroud.
