The Dover Road: Annals of an Ancient Turnpike

by Charles G. Harper

When morning dawned, he found himself on a high table-land with a river flowing along a valley below him, and here he first descried the Britons. The place at which Cæsar had arrived was Barham Downs, and the river he saw was the Lesser Stour, that even now, although a much smaller stream than then, flows through the valley to the right of the Dover Road. A road of some sort existed even at that time, although it perhaps might be more correctly described as a “track.” Down it went the exports of that far distant age; the undressed skins of wild animals; the dogs and the gold; and up this way from the primitive Dover came the beads and the trinkets; the manufactures of pottery and glass, which our very remote fathers loved as much as the uncivilized races of to-day delight in the selfsame kind of thing.

Cæsar deployed his forces along the ridge of the Downs facing the road, the river, and the enemy, who had entrenchments on the further side of the river immediately fronting him and others advancing diagonally toward the road which they crossed on the northern hill-top at Bridge, ending at a point slightly to the north-east of the place where Bekesbourne Station stands now. Cæsar’s first object was to reach the water in the valley, there to refresh his horses, and a forward cavalry movement was made with this object.

“OLD ENGLAND’S HOLE.”

“OLD ENGLAND’S HOLE.”

But this advance precipitated the battle that was imminent, for the Britons, who held the opposite ridge in force, rushed down the slope to the waterside, and furiously attacked the Roman horse. Exhausted though they were by a waterless night march, the Roman cavalry met the assault, and, repelling it, drove the enemy back into the woods. This cavalry charge was followed by a general advance into the dense thickets, into which, excellently suited, both by nature and by art, for defence, the Britons had retired. Here they fought in small bands, protected by mounds and trenches and by felled trees cunningly interlaced. One of these oppida remains in Bourne Park, on the summit of Bridge Hill and beside the Watling Street which, until 1829, was identical with the Dover Road. In that year a slight deviation was made to the left over the hilltop for about two hundred yards’ length of roadway, and in the course of cutting through the hill a number of Roman urns and skulls were discovered at a depth of five feet. The circular earthwork of the redoubt still remains in very good preservation, surrounded with trees, the successors of those which covered the hill when the Britons and Romans contended together here. The place is known locally as “Old England’s Hole,” and tradition has it that here the Britons made their last stand. Tradition is not lightly to be put aside at any time, but when it is supported by Cæsar’s own words it deserves all respect. “Being repulsed,” he writes, “they withdrew themselves into the woods, and reached a place which they had prepared before, having closed all approaches to it by felled timber.” The soldiers of the Seventh Legion, however, soon captured this stronghold. Throwing up a mound against it, they advanced, holding their shields over their heads in the formation known as “the tortoise,” and drove out the defenders at the sword’s point. This was the last place to hold out that day. Everywhere the Britons were dislodged, and numbers of them slain. The survivors withdrew further into the woodlands that surrounded Caer Caint, and Cæsar, suspecting ambuscades in those unknown forests, forbade pursuit.

BATTLE OF BARHAM DOWNS

It was evening before the last fighting was done. The battle had raged on a front extending for three miles, from Bekesbourne to Kingston, and it now remained to camp for the night, and to fortify against a possible surprise the ridge which Cæsar held. And so, before the exhausted soldiery could lie down to rest after the incessant labours of two days and nights, they threw up the lines of entrenchments that still, after a lapse of more than nineteen hundred years, remain distinct upon Barham Downs.

The next day the Romans buried their dead, and Cæsar had just despatched three columns in a forward movement towards Caer Caint, when hasty news arrived from Deal that a storm had shattered his fleet. The rear-guard of the hindmost column was just disappearing from his gaze as he stood on Patrixbourne Hill, and hurriedly sending messengers to bring the expedition back, he at once prepared to return to the coast, taking with him artificers for the repair of his vessels, and an escort sufficient to secure his own safety. Cæsar had no certain means of knowing how long a time his absence would extend, but, bidding his legions to remain in camp until his return, and meanwhile to increase the strength of their defences, he set out. He was absent ten days. In the meanwhile the courage of the Britons had revived. They perceived from their woody lairs the Roman soldiery busily throwing up mounds and long lines of earthworks on the level summit of the downs, and they judged that the invaders were compelled, either by fear, or from lack of numbers, to remain on the defensive. Their numbers increased as the days went by and the Romans made no advance, and they were now commanded by a general of great ability, none less than the celebrated Cassivelaunus. Cæsar, on his return, was harassed by them, and found his camp seriously threatened when he arrived. Leaving 10,000 men in camp, he advanced with the remainder, and made a determined stand on a spot that may be identified on the hills half a mile to the north-west of Bridge. Here a desperate and bloody day’s fighting took place, the Britons returning again and again after repeated repulses. Many of the foremost legionaries who had pursued them into the woods were surrounded and slain there; many more of the Britons fell in that glorious fight. One of the Roman tribunes, Quintus Laberius Durus, was killed that day, and Nennius, one of the foremost British leaders, was slain in the last onset, when he burst at the head of a chosen few on the Roman soldiery engaged in the formation of a camp. Both sides claimed the victory, and, indeed, Cæsar had, so far, little reason to boast, for when night came he had only advanced three miles beyond the stream upon which his first camp on Barham Downs had looked, and, even then, he had only been enabled to hold his own by the aid of reinforcements drawn from his camp-guard. The next day, however, put a different aspect upon his campaign. He had probably intended to rest his troops, and sent out a strong force only in order to perform the necessary foraging; but the Britons attacked them with such fierceness that another battle was fought, resulting in a decisive victory for the Romans, who pursued the vanquished and cut them down for miles. The Britons were now thoroughly disheartened, and retreated towards London along their track-way, followed by Cæsar. Desultory fighting occurred on the way, and one ineffectual stand was made at some unidentified place, conjectured to have been at Key Coll Hill, near Newington. But, thenceforward, the accounts left by Cæsar and by early British writers grow confused. Whether the victorious general, in pursuit of Cassivelaunus, crossed the Thames at London, or whether “Coway Stakes,” near Weybridge, mark the scene, will never be known. But when he had penetrated into Hertfordshire, and had humbled the British king to the point of asking for peace, Cæsar found it was time to return to Gaul. Exacting hostages, he commenced his retreat. Harassed by flying bands of natives, who cut off stragglers and placed obstacles in his line of march, he reached Deal in September, sailing thence on the 26th of that month. Thus ended Cæsar’s second and last invasion of Britain. He had been six weeks in the island; had marched a hundred miles into its dense forests, and had humbled the native princes. But winter was approaching, and it was dangerous to delay. He returned to the Continent, a victor, with hostages, prisoners, and promises of tribute; but he left many of his expedition, dead, behind him. And it is significant of how hazardous these invasions were, that not until another ninety-six years had passed did another Roman so much as land on these shores.