Canterbury Archeological Trust

Roman Road at No 2 High Street
Mark Houliston


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Structural repair works on the site of the former `Cheker of the Hope Inn', built for Christ Church Priory in 1392-5 (see Arch Cant. xxix (1911), 65), was preceded in October 1987 by the cutting of a trench in the basement of the property to locate a new stanchion base.

Directly below sand bedding deposits for the original stone flagged cellar floor lay a sequence of gravel metallings for a major Roman street. The street. aligned north east to south west separated insulae containing the public baths to the south-east and Roman forum to the north-west. The gravel metallings were cut through by a brick built dome topped eighteenth century well. Removal of well lining indicated a total road thickness of c. 1.9m comprising numerous surfacings of compacted street metalling. The uppermost late Roman streets had been truncated during cellar formation in the late fourteenth century. Pre-Flavian samian recovered from leached redeposited brickearth underlying the primary street indicated a mid first century date for the first road.

Our thanks are extended to George Oliver (Footwear) PLC for including time and funding for archaeological works in their development schedule.

Map of Roman Canterbury

See this place today Click on the logo to see this place today.   The information on this page is Copyright © Canterbury Archaeological Trust Ltd. 1989 Reproduced with permission.
The text and pictures were taken from Canterbury's Archaeology 1987/1988, The 12th Annual Report of Canterbury Archaeological Trust Ltd.


Peter Collinson Last change: 18th November 2018