My ‘great’ site this month comprises two sites – actually, two ships – linked by common stories of survival against the odds. In September 1992, the remains of a boat dating to the Middle Bronze Age were discovered in central Dover by workers constructing part of the A20 link road leading to Folkestone. A decade later, in June 2002, the skeleton of a mid-15th century ship was discovered during the construction of a new arts centre in the middle of Newport. These are two of the most important finds of maritime archaeology ever made in the UK, and they have comparable stories of unexpected discovery, urgent recovery, and community campaigning to ensure their survival.
Digging Dover
To commence with Dover, CA 25 (March 1971), CA 38 (May 1973), and CA 57 (July 1977) set the scene of discovery across the 1960 and 1970s, the heyday of the ‘rescue’ movement, when archaeological sites in towns and cities across the nation were being identified, excavated, and – in a few cases – protected in the face of often unchecked redevelopment. Such was the story in Dover, where the Council for Kentish Archaeology (later the Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit) did sterling work on Roman, medieval, and later sites across the town. Most famously, this took place at the miraculously preserved ‘painted house’, part of a large Roman mansio (official hotel) for travellers, a unique survival that includes more than 400square feet of painted plaster, making it the most extensive known north of the Alps. CA 196 (March 2005) gives fascinating detail on work in this period in an interview with lead archaeologist Brian Philp.
The scene was thus set for additional discoveries when new roadworks commenced in the centre of town in the early 1990s, with the Canterbury Archaeological Trust on hand to record them. In September 1992, as reported in CA 133 (March 1993), a group of timbers were spotted in the bottom of a contractor’s pit some 6m below ground level. Their potential scale and significance were rapidly assessed (the nature of the timbers and their ‘sewn’ connections immediately led the team to suspect a prehistoric origin), and additional time was granted to record and excavate them. The majority of the timbers had to be lifted rather than left in situ, as works in this area needed to go deeper than the find-spot. Work continued apace, with the boat cut into ten sections for easier recovery amid great local interest: you can read a poem in CA 392 (November 2022) that speaks to that spirit of community engagement.
