Folkestone Roman Villa: Report on excavations 2010

Report on excavations 2010 by Keith Parfitt

The Scheduled Roman villa site above East Wear Bay at Folkestone overlooks the English Channel, with clear views across to the French coast, some 36km distant. The villa here was first discovered and excavated by Samuel Winbolt in 1923-4 (Winbolt 1925, Fig 1) and remained open until 1957, when it was backfilled due to its poor state and declining visitor numbers.

The complex comprised a large winged-corridor house (Block A) with an adjacent corridor house (Block B) set at a right angle to it. A bath-suite (Block C) lay immediately beyond Block B. Traces of Iron Age activity were located below the villa remains. The only excavations undertaken since Winbolt’s time were those conducted by the Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit in 1989, when the remains of Block C on the cliff-edge, together with the south-eastern end of Block B, were re-examined, with some useful results (Philp 1990).

In 1924 about 30 metres of land lay between the north-east wing of Block A and the cliff edge. By 2010 coastal erosion had reduced this figure to 2.25m (Fig 2). Work in 1989 established that part of Block C was already destroyed. The entire villa complex is thus at risk of loss in the short to medium term. Finds previously made on the foreshore below the site have included quantities of Iron Age and Roman coins and pottery (Holman 2005; Weston 2005), together with numerous examples of quernstones, many unfinished (Keller 1988, 59–68; Keller 1989, 193–200). Taken together, the evidence demonstrates the existence of a highly significant archaeological site on the adjacent cliff-top, which is being steadily eroded by the sea. The Roman villa forms just one element of this site, which clearly has pre-Conquest origins.

In December 2009 the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded grant funding of £298,000 to conduct a three year community archaeological and historical project entitled ‘A Town Unearthed: Folkestone Before 1500’ (ATU). Investigation of the East Wear Bay site was planned as a major component of this project during 2010 and 2011, led by Canterbury Archaeological Trust, working in association with Canterbury Christ Church University and the Folkestone People’s History Centre. Additional funding for the project has come from the KAS and the Roger De Haan Charitable Trust.

Fieldwork for 2010 began with a geophysical survey, undertaken in June. Excavations started in August and lasted until the end of October. More than 200 volunteers participated and over two thousand members of the public visited the site, together with around 400 school children. Work focussed on the north-east wing of Block A, nearest the cliff, together with a previously undug area immediately to the north-east. Five test-trenches were opened.

also out to the north of the villa. These revealed significant stratified deposits and features, mostly dating to the late Iron Age and Roman periods.

The re-exposed villa foundations were found to be reasonably well preserved. They were confirmed as relating to two successive buildings (Villa I and Villa II; Fig 3) occupying the same site, as previously reported by Winbolt. Below these remains were found important pre-Roman deposits and structures, mostly dating to the late Iron Age and largely untouched by the earlier digging. The primary clays over the natural produced quantities of early prehistoric pottery and flintwork. A late Iron Age curving gully dug into these clays seemingly represented the drained ditch enclosing a timber roundhouse. It was overlain by a rough chalk floor, probably relating to a subsequent building, cut through by the earliest villa foundations.

Substantial quantities of finds were recovered, including some important pottery and flint assemblages. A total of 23 coins was discovered, of which thirteen are Iron Age. Many fragments of quernstone were also collected, all but one made from the local greensand.

Previous research (Keller 1988, 1989) has established that such querns were being manufactured at the site and this was fully borne out in 2010, when two working floors were located in one of the outlying trenches.

The archaeological deposits present on the site are considerably more extensive and complex than previously realised. The finds suggest that habitation in the area occurred at various times throughout prehistory, beginning in the Mesolithic. The main period of occupation, however, was during the late Iron Age, perhaps c.150BC–AD50. The first of the two Roman villa buildings was probably erected sometime before the end of the first century AD. Whether there was a gap between the final occupation of the Iron Age site and the construction of this villa presently remains unclear.

The pre-Roman settlement clearly covered an area considerably larger than the villa complex; an unknown amount must already have been lost to the sea. The quantity of Iron Age coins and imported pottery now known, most notably imported Italian wine amphorae of Dressel 1 type, implies that this site was of rather higher status than a simple farmstead. Located virtually at the shortest sea crossing to the Continent, it seems highly likely that this site on the south-east Kent coast was acting as a port of trade with the Roman world during the first century BC. The next season of excavation is being awaited with great anticipation. KAS members will be most welcome to join in.

Bibliography

Holman, D., 2005 ‘Iron Age coinage and settlement in east Kent’, Britannia 36, 1–54.

Keller, P.T., 1988 ‘The evidence for ancient quern production at Folkestone’, Kent Archaeological Review 93, 59–68.

Keller, P.T., 1989 ‘Quern production at Folkestone, South-East Kent: An interim note’, Britannia 20, 193–200.

Philp, B.J., 1990 ‘Excavations on the Roman villa at Folkestone 1989’, Kent Archaeological Review 99, 206–209.

Weston, A., 2005 ‘First century samian pottery from East Wear Bay, Folkestone’, Kent Archaeological Review 161, 11–14.

Winbolt, S.E., 1925 Roman Folkestone (London: Methuen).