Richborough Environs Project

  Aerial view looking south-east across the River Stour. The Richborough Environs Project is part of a multi-disciplinary research project initiated by the English Heritage Centre for Archaeology at Portsmouth under Tony Wilmott. The project is centred on the Roman fort at Richborough, Kent, which as one of the principal entry points to Roman Britain, would have been a major civil centre with a commercial harbour of considerable importance.

Bushe-Fox's excavations in the 1920s. The remains of the amphitheatre to the south-west of the fort (excavated by Rolfe in 1849) and the discovery of traces of buildings and finds across the site indicated the presence of a sizeable settlement, but until recently nobody was sure of its full extent.

The earliest aerial photographs of the site were taken during the Bushe-Fox excavations of the fort between 1926 and 1938 and subsequent photographs had recorded only traces of roads and tantalising hints of buildings.

Cropmark remains of a large building complex south-west of the fort.  Cropmark remains of the settlement adjacent to the Saxon Shore fort. Aerial reconnaissance by English Heritage in 2001, however, revealed the clearest cropmarks of the site extending to the west, south-west and north-west of the fort. A network of roads and rectilinear enclosures interpreted as the robbed-out foundations of buildings could clearly be seen as cropmarks in the fields adjacent to the fort, and as both the roads and buildings appear to change alignment to the south-west this seems to indicate that at least two phases of development had occurred.

Aerial Survey plot of the surrounding settlement Detailed interpretation of all available photographs are represented in the plot right, which shows the extent of the Roman settlement as well as some more recent features such as WWII gun emplacements. The aerial survey is part of a broader project where the use of geophysical survey and limited excavation by the Centre for Archaeology will help to broaden our understanding of this important site.

An internal report on the aerial survey aspects of the project is available from the NMR.

For further information on the aerial survey aspects of the project please contact: AerialSurvey@english-heritage.org.uk.

For other details contact tony.wilmott@english-heritage.org.uk