Richborough Roman Fort

Richborough Roman Fort stands on a low rise in the flat Kent countryside, two and a half miles from the present coastline. The massive stone walls of the later Saxon Shore fort still rise several metres above the grass. Beneath the fort lie the buried ruins of a much larger Roman town called Rutupiae, founded after the invasion of AD 43. Watling Street, the great road to London, once passed through a giant quadrifrons arch here. The site commands the former Wantsum Channel, a natural harbour that once separated the Isle of Thanet from the mainland. The fort is worth the journey because it was the main gateway for Roman imports into Britain. Rutupiae’s oysters were praised across the empire, and Juvenal compared them to those from Italy. The triumphal arch, almost twenty-five metres high, marked the formal entry into Roman Britain after Agricola’s victory. The later Saxon Shore fort, built in the late third century, enclosed five acres with walls over eight metres tall. Carausius, the rebel emperor, is believed to have ordered its construction. Excavations have uncovered a hexagonal font and vividly painted amphitheatre walls, the first of their kind in Britain. Visitors find grassy ramparts and the standing remains of the fort’s four walls. A low mound shows where the great arch once stood, its Italian granite reused for the fort. A five-minute walk away, the amphitheatre’s chalk-block walls still outline the arena where up to five thousand watched games. Inside the fort, the foundations of timber buildings and a stone headquarters survive. The site is quiet now, but the scale of the walls and the stories buried beneath make it clear why this place mattered for centuries.