RECULVER.
At the time of the Roman occupation Thanet was an island, and to guard the north-west end of the important channel of the "Wantsume," which separated the island from the main part of Kent, the Romans built Regulbium, corresponding to the greater Rutupiae of the southern outlet.9 The Roman fort was probably one of the earliest in the country. It must have covered about eighty acres, and was garrisoned by the first cohort of Vetasii from Brabant. In 670, Bassa, a priest, erected a monastery and church here, which, nearly three hundred years later, were annexed by the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury. The greater part of these buildings was ruthlessly destroyed by the villagers in 1809, but the intervention of the Trinity House authorities in the following year saved the towers of the church, to serve as landmarks to the mariner. The churchyard is being slowly eroded by the sea.
9 It is possible that works now proceeding, necessitated by the Great War, may result in the regulation of the waterways close to Sandwich and in its neighbourhood in such wise as to open up again this channel, and constitute Thanet once more an island in fact as well as in name.
RICHBOROUGH.—Rutupiae.
This furnishes one of the finest remaining relics of Roman Britain. Built somewhat later than Reculver—about the middle of the third century A.D.—the castle guarded the principal and oldest port of entry into Britain in the Roman period. The rectangular enclosure still existing was the fortress of a considerable Roman settlement which lay to the south and south-west. At a little distance is an amphitheatre with three entrances. Out of the West or Decuman Gate, the Roman road to London and the North started. In the centre of the North wall is the opening of the Postern Gate, and there were probably central gates on the east and south. The feature of greatest interest remaining is the subterranean structure in the centre. This consists of an overhanging platform on a concrete foundation. There are traces of an encircling wall, and projecting upwards from the centre is an extraordinary cruciform platform. An underground passage runs round the whole. Some antiquaries consider that all this formed part of some temporary or substitutional building raised in lieu of an original more ambitious design; others think it may have been a signal tower combined with a lighthouse. In the Liverpool Museum are to be found many objects discovered here, including mural paintings, pottery, toys, dice, a steelyard with weights, and bone spurs, used for cock-fighting.
ROCHESTER.—Durobrivæ; Horfcester, 33 miles E.S.E. of London.
Its situation on the Roman Way from the Kentish ports to the metropolis, as well as its strategical position on the bend of the Medway, gave Rochester and the adjacent places on the river early importance. It was a walled Romano-British town, though of no great size. The original bridge across the Medway to Strood probably dates from the Roman period, taking the place of a ferry.