Digging Deep

Thanks for all the comments and hearts on yesterday’s blip.  I haven’t had time to reply but appreciate them all.

A great end to our short ‘Roman’ break in Kent.  This morning we were taken up to Reculver on the north coast of Kent where there are the remains of a Roman Fort.  It guarded the north end of the wide channel that separated mainland Kent from the Island of Thanet and which was widely used by the Roman fleet before silting up in the 1600’s, joining the island to the mainland.  We then headed off to Sandwich for Sunday lunch and a look around, before heading off (with a brief stop at St Augustine’s Cross) to Richborough.

What an amazing afternoon.  Richborough is the fort guarding the other end of the channel and is much more complete.  We were lucky enough to be met there by Tony Wilmott, the archaeologist who has excavated a large amount of the site along with many other Roman sites across the country. He gave us a full guided tour and then took us to the subject of my picture; a new excavation at an amphitheatre on site which is not normally open to the public.  Here, he is showing us a section of the arena wall that has been uncovered, whilst he showed us some of the things they have discovered on other parts of the site.  The areas that are covered in plastic are being protected as they have found small traces of paint which indicates that the arena walls were decorated in some way.  The excavation will carry on until November after which the site will be backfilled, so we felt privileged to see something that ‘ordinary’ members of the public will never see.

We’ve now moved on to Tunbridge Wells and are treating ourselves to a very nice (and expensive) hotel for the next few days.