Richborough Castle

It has commonly been accepted that Richborough Castle was the landing site for the Claudian invasion in 43 AD. This is because of the existence of mid-1st century ditches and fortifications on the site, and because such a crossing would have exploited the shortest route over the English Channel. The ditches and fortifications are assumed to have been built to protect the Roman bridgehead and supply depot. However, explicit details on the site of the Claudian invasion have not survived and its location is a matter of scholarly debate.

The cellar of the mansio

As the fighting moved north, Rutupiae became an increasingly large civilian settlement. There were temples, an amphitheatre (visible as a hummock in the grass 5 minutes' walk from the main site), and a mansio (first built in 100, it was a building that went through several phases, being a guest house for visiting officials, bath house and administration building).

As a port, the town always competed with Portus Dubris (modern Dover), about 15 mi (24 km) south along the coast. However, Richborough was widely regarded throughout the Roman Empire for the quality of its oysters. They are mentioned as on a par with those from the Italian Lucrine Lake in Juvenal.[2] "Rutupine shore" was used as a common metonymy for Britain in Latin writers.[3]

A major quadrifrons triumphal arch was erected straddling Watling Street, the main road from Richborough to London. Its position and size suggest it may have been built to celebrate the final conquest of Britain after Agricola’s victory at the Battle of Mons Graupius.[4] Almost 25 m (82 ft) high, it had a facade of high quality, Italian granite. Standing as it did between the port and the province, passage through the arch signified formal entry into Britannia (cf the similarly maritime Arch of Trajan at Ancona). Only the foundations and mound of the Richborough arch are still visible. It was demolished by the Romans themselves, apparently to provide building materials for the later Saxon Shore fort on the site.

Ruins of Richborough Castle

A Carausian coin (c. 290) of the same type as those found at Richborough

During the late 3rd century this (by now large) civilian town was re-militarised by its conversion into a so-called Saxon Shore fort, a series of forts built by the Romans along the Channel on the English and French coasts possibly to guard against invading Saxon pirates. Construction of the fort here is believed to have started in 277 and been completed in 285. This involved the demolition and reuse as spolia of the triumphal arch, and numismatic evidence suggests it occurred during the reign of Carausius.[1]

The fort was 5 acres (2.0 ha) in area and was surrounded by massive walls, forming an almost perfect square. However, the north and south walls were constructed differently. The north wall was built by separate gangs of laborers, while the south wall seems to have been built as a single unit. This suggests that the north wall of the fort was built sometime after the construction of the south wall. In some places, the walls reached over 25 feet (8 m) in height, and were built of small ashlar and double-tile courses. The main entrance of the fort was in the west wall. The walls stand to a great height and were of such high quality that they only recently needed repointing.

Though some stone buildings existed in the interior of the fort, most of its buildings were made of timber. There existed a central rectangular building built of stone, which was probably the principia (headquarters). Small, stone-built baths were also present at Richborough.[5]

There exists an unexplained structure at Richborough that is believed to be a font. Today, this structure is almost entirely destroyed. The hexagonal font discovered during the excavations at Richborough suggests that baptisms could have been a function of this church. The church was probably built at the end of the 4th century or at the beginning of the 5th century. It seems plausible that the church was built of wood.[6]

Roman Richborough on the 4th century Peutinger Map.

During the decline of the Roman Empire, Richborough was eventually abandoned by the Romans and after this, the site was occupied by a Saxon religious settlement.

Excavations carried out in late 2008 of a 90 m (300 ft) section of Roman wall uncovered the original Roman coastline along with the remains of a medieval dock. The discovery and excavation of the beach itself has pinpointed its geographical relationship to the site's earthworks, proving that the earthworks were a beachhead defence, protecting around 700 m (2,300 ft) of coast. The site is now two and half miles inland from the current coastline.[7][8] In 2020, excavations by English Heritage were to have explored the amphitheatre. Senior Properties Historian Paul Pattison explained that the investigation was to find out "what did the amphitheatre look like, how was it constructed and what happened after it fell out of use?".[9]