A townhouse believed to belong to a rich Roman citizen has been found on the Marlowe Theatre site in Canterbury.
Archaeologists recently uncovered the building, complete with a hypocaust, the Roman equivalent of under-floor heating, painted walls and tessellated floor tiles – a type of mosaic.
Archaeologist Jon Rady, the site’s project manager, said: “It is probably quite a wealthy person’s house because we have found that some of the rooms had painted plaster like the painted house in Dover, only not so well preserved.
“The building is significant in that we haven’t found any Roman remains in that area before.”
The building is thought to be around 15 metres square and it is to the east of the Marlowe’s tower. The building was found because constructors on the site had to dig deeper than originally expected.
Archaeologists have found that the area was a flood plain two millennia ago, but the townhouse would have been on a natural high point.
Mr Rady said: “It is definitely Roman but we don’t know what date it is exactly yet.
“The Romans were in Canterbury from the invasion in the 1st Century AD through to the 5th Century. It is probably fairly early, from the 2nd Century or so, which was when most of the masonry buildings were constructed.”
The Roman structure has been badly disturbed by previous building works, and much of the masonry used to build the walls was quarried out in medieval times.
Mr Rady said: “The building is probably too fragmented to be worth preserving and it is not really possible because of the development. We only have the very base of the building left.
“The plaster work will be recovered, recorded and photographed but it is only fragmented pieces.”
Archaeologists have also found medieval revetments from the 14th of 15th Century to the east of the Marlowe. Revetments are a way of forming an artificial river bank made by driving timber piles into the ground and boarding up the gaps to stop earth spillage.
Mr Rady said: “It is possibly a separate river channel, it is probably that the river was a bit wider then, or it could be some sort of place where boats were tied up.
“It is a bit like what you can see down at the West Gate Gardens along the river now.
“Because it is a low-lying site the ground has been raised up. It was obviously subject to flooding as it is today.”
POSTED: 11/11/2009 06:00:00
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