Kent Archaeological Society Fieldwork Committee Conference - 24th October 1998

Roman Kent and Beyond

The conference was held in the ideal venue at Christ Church College, Canterbury. This was a very comfortable lecture theatre with excellent facilities, although we were all very grateful for the technical expertise of Chris Broomfield in dealing with the audio/visual side of things! About 100 people attended even though the weather left much to be desired.

The proceedings opened with our president, Mr Paul Oldham, welcoming both the audience and speakers. He emphasized the importance of the theme especially with regard to the KAS training dig being undertaken at Minster.

Our first lecturer was David Rudling who is the Director of the Field Archaeology Unit at the Institute of Archaeology and also directs the commercial arm of the Unit with its headquarters in Ditchling, Sussex. He gave us a splendid overview of the changing situation during the Roman period in Sussex, although he left the controversy of the site of the actual Roman invasion. This will be more fully discussed at the Sussex Archaeological Society's conference in 1999. (I guarantee that the KAS Autumn conference will not clash with this!). David illustrated his lecture with many excellent slides.

The next speaker was very well known to us all, Paul Bennett, Director of the Canterbury Archaeological Trust, who proceeded to bring us up to date with the latest discoveries in Roman Canterbury. These were mainly brought about by the redevelopment of various areas in the city of Canterbury. He whetted our appetite for the future by mentioning what promises to be the largest urban excavation in Europe with the major redevelopment at the Bus Station and surrounding area. This should give opportunities for amateur archaeologists to take part in many aspects of a very important project. As we have come to expect from Paul, his illustrations and presentation were excellent.

The morning session ended with Dr. Michael Still illustrating and outlining his work on Roman lead seals in Kent with parallels from elsewhere in Europe. He suggested that, based on a comparison of seals found in Trier and the organization of Roman trading practices, Britain was the source of these seals.

After lunch, Dave Perkins, Director of the Trust for Thanet Archaeology, brought us up to date with the latest findings from the important KAS training dig at Abbey Farm, Minster on Thanet. This was the third year of the excavation of the winged Roman villa. The talk overviewed the development of the excavation of the site, which has yielded substantial amounts of pottery etc. Dave ended his illustrated talk by emphasizing that there is still much to be discovered about the whole site, especially with regard to the infrastructure of the villa and its environs.

The final session of the day was given by Harvey Sheldon who spoke on Roman Southwark with which he has been closely associated for many years. He gave us a fascinating tour of the Borough through the eyes of antiquarians, Sir Mortimer Wheeler, Katherine Kenyon and then the endeavors of both amateur and professional archaeologists since the Second World War. Much of the recent work has confirmed those thoughts and discoveries of earlier times. Harvey used excellent slides to illustrate many of his points.

It was obvious from the many questions at the end of the day that those present had enjoyed a most interesting and thought-provoking day. Paul Oldham closed the conference by thanking all the speakers and those who had helped to make this a success.

Sheila Broomfield.