RUTUPIA
(Richborough) Kent, England.
The Roman settlement lies on a sandy hill overlooking
the valley of the river Stour, now largely silted, which
marks the position of the Wantsum Channel, a watelway
of some significance in the Roman period. The site was
first used in the year of the invasion (A.D. 43) as a bridgehead and storage depot for the invading army, which
constructed two parallel defense ditches and a rampart
to protect the anchorage and its immediate vicinity. By
the next year the ditches had been filled in and a substantial storage base had been laid out: a properly
constructed grid of graveled roads, a series of batteries
of granary buildings, workshops, and what appears to
be an administrative building, all built in timber.
By ca. A.D. 85, after a series of modifications and rebuildings, the storage base was abandoned and the buildings demolished to make way for new development. A massive monument was constructed on a concrete base
(37.8 x 24.3 m, and 9 m deep). Originally it was a
quadrifrons, encased in marble and ornamented with
bronze statuary, but all that now remains is the foundation. Its size and elaboration, and its position at the head
of Watling Street, virtually the gateway to Britain, suggest that it may have been erected to commemorate the
final conquest of the country after Agricola's victory at
Mons Graupius. In front of the monument the streets
were remetaled and a series of shops and workshops were
constructed, while nearby a mansio was built in masonry.
To the S lay temples and an amphitheater.
In the early 2d c. the settlement developed further:
drains were laid, some of the shops were rebuilt in masonry, and the mansio was substantially reconstructed.
The early 3d c., however, appears to have been a period
of economic decline, with burials, including a masonry
tomb, encroaching upon the built-up area. One possible
explanation is that the nearby port of Dubris (Dover)
had captured the cross-channel trade, leaving Richborough to decay.
Towards the middle of the 3d c. much of the built-up
area around the monument was flattened and the monument itself was probably turned into a lookout post.
The settlement was now enclosed by a rampart and a
system of triple ditches, with a single entrance in the
center of the W side. It is possible that a small garrison
was housed within the 0.4 ha enclosure, but no trace
of its accommodation has been recorded.
Later, probably in the 280s, the monument was demolished, the ditches filled up, and the whole central
area enclosed by the massive masonry wall of a Saxon
shore fort. The wall, which still stands for a substantial
part of the circuit, was built of flint boulders faced with
coursed limestone and bonded at intervals with horizontal
courses of tiles. Originally it was ca. 9 m high. The
main gate, consisting of two guard chambers flanking the
single carriage roadway, was in the W side, and the N
wall had a postern. Probably there was a corresponding
postern in the S wall, but details are unknown. Circular
turrets projected from the two surviving corners of the
fort, and the intervening walls each had two rectangular bastions. Outside the walls the fort was defended by
two V-shaped ditches. The inner ditch on the W side
appears to have been misaligned and was dug again in
a short time.
Interior details are obscure, but some evidence suggests that the principia was built on the platform once
occupied by the monument, while a small bath suite was
erected in the NE corner. Two other simple masonry
structures, possibly guild rooms, were found, but elsewhere the buildings must have been of timber. Occupation continued throughout the 4th c. and probably well into the 5th. During this time Richborough maintained
an important position in the Saxon shore system. It was
here that Count Theodosius landed in 369 to reorganize
the country after the so-called “barbarian conspiracy.”
It is also the place where, traditionally, St. Augustine
landed in 597.
The main excavations were from 1922 to 1938, and
many of the structural details discovered can be seen
today. The objects are displayed in a museum on the site.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
J. P. Bushe-Fox,
First Report on the
Excavations of the Roman Fort at Richborough, Kent
(1926);
Second Report (1928);
Third Report (1932);
Fourth Report (1949); B. W. Cunliffe, ed.,
Fifth Report
(1968); J. S. Johnson, “The Date of the Construction
of the Saxon Shore Fort at Richborough,”
Britannia 1
(1970) 240-48.
B. W. CUNLIFFE
