The Rocky Road to the Iron Age: Excavations at Folkestone Roman villa, 2011
by Keith Parfitt
The second season of excavation at the East Wear Bay Roman villa, Folkestone ran between May and November 2011. Things got off to a flying start with a visit by Dr. Alice Roberts and the Digging for Britain TV film crew in June. This was followed by an open weekend with Roman re-enactors drawing the crowds in early July.
The investigations form a major component of a three year Heritage Lottery-funded community archaeological and historical project entitled ‘A Town Unearthed: Folkestone Before 1500’ (ATU). The work is being undertaken by volunteers led by Canterbury Archaeological Trust, in association with Canterbury Christ Church University and the Folkestone People’s History Centre. Additional funding has come from the KAS and the local Roger De Haan Charitable Trust.
The 2011 excavations were positioned across part of the undisturbed courtyard area in front of the main villa house, which is the portion of the site most imminently threatened with collapse into the sea. Thick archaeological deposits were preserved here, many relating to occupation that occurred before the construction of the Roman villa complex.
At the base of the sequence, the surface of the natural Gault was sealed by a succession of clays producing significant amounts of struck flint, flint-tempered prehistoric pottery, animal bone and marine shell, although there were only two small associated features. The uppermost clay layer was cut across by a sunken, metalled road.
trackway (christened The Rocky Road), associated with pottery provisionally dated to around 100 BC. An infant burial had been casually deposited by the side of this track at some stage. A short distance further to the north-east was a substantial oven pit. These discoveries, together with a scatter of post-holes, appeared to represent the earliest features of a settlement continuously occupied throughout the late Iron Age and into the Roman period.
Eventually, the trackway went out of use and the hollow became filled with soil and rubbish. At one point a pit had been cut into these accumulated soils to allow the insertion of a burial urn containing cremated bone. Subsequently, the levelled area became occupied by hearths and chalk floors relating to two separate timber buildings, each one rebuilt several times. Traces of a possible four-post structure, perhaps a raised granary, were also recorded close by. All these structures would seem to date from the late first century BC.
After the timber buildings had gone out of use the area was cut across by a succession of ditches. These probably served to delimit fields and enclosures. Some of the ditches were of substantial proportions; the latest ones were early Roman in date. The final ditch in the sequence had been deliberately backfilled sometime during the later first century AD, to make way for the construction of the villa.
Once the ditches were levelled, the area was covered by more soil and clay before rough, patchy metalling was laid down as a courtyard in front of the Roman villa. No evidence of any associated garden or ornamental features was discovered and the whole arrangement appeared lacking in much refinement. The metalling did, however, yield one important find – an engraved gemstone (intaglio), found near the main entrance.
On the north-east side, during the earlier part of the fourth century, the yard surface became covered with soil and rubbish and quite clearly this part of the courtyard was now out of use. Subsequently, a section of the villa roof collapsed onto the courtyard, followed by masonry from the walls. It would seem that at least part of the villa was by now ruinous and unoccupied.
Later, however, the roof-fall, collapsed walling, and soil layers over the courtyard were all sealed by a laid rubble surface which seemed to constitute a new (upper) courtyard. Along the south-western side, closest to the main entrance into the villa, this new rubble layer occurred at two distinct levels. Nearest the building it existed as a clear platform. A sloping rubble bank separated this raised area from the remaining spread. As well as pottery and animal bone, soil mixed with the stones produced eight coins. Their dates indicate that the rubble cannot have been laid before the mid–late fourth century AD. The heyday of the Roman villa had certainly passed by now and the new courtyard may have been laid down as a work area after the main house was abandoned.
A thin layer of dark soil subsequently accumulated over the rubble surface. This contained much domestic rubbish and a
further nine coins, all of which are fourth century in date, one perhaps being as late as c. AD 390. Activity on this part of the site, however, does not seem to have continued much into the fifth century. After the villa was finally given up, the site seems to have remained largely unoccupied until the present day.
A significant quantity of finds was recovered from the 2011 excavation. The bulk of the material consists of pottery, animal bone, marine shell, roofing tile and prehistoric flintwork. There are also more than 800 registered small finds, including coins, brooches, glass, iron implements and quernstone fragments. Of special interest were the engraved gemstone, four pieces of a small Mother Goddess figurine, a complete iron writing stylus, a decorated Iron Age bead, and an important collection of 36 Iron Age coins.
The two seasons’ work at Folkestone have now yielded some remarkable results and show that a great deal of new information is still to be recovered from this long-known site. It is clear that the excavated Roman villa complex occupies the site of a much older settlement. Intact stratification, untouched by previous excavation, appears to survive across much of the area but the entire site is ultimately threatened by coastal erosion. Without doubt, much more work is warranted here.