Reculver Towers and Roman Fort - Reculver, Kent - Preserved Architectural Remnants and Ruins on Waymarking.com

Standing high on the cliff these towers are a striking image on approach which justifies their use as a navigational aid.

The English Heritage information board describes the Reculver Towers and Roman Fort:

'Roman Fort and Medieval Church

The Roman Fort of Regulbium was established around AD 200. Occupied for 200 years, it was then abandoned and later re-used as an Anglo-Saxon monastery. The monastic church was subsequently adapted, serving as Reculver's parish church until early 19th century when the impact of coastal erosion led to its demolition. Only its towers were saved as navigational markers.

Opening times
Any reasonable time in daylight hours, external viewing only.'

Wikipedia describes the site further (website below):

'Reculver is a village and coastal resort about 3 miles (5 km) east of Herne Bay in south-east England, in a ward of the same name, in the City of Canterbury district of Kent. It is about 30 miles (48 km) east by north of the county town of Maidstone, and about 58 miles (93 km) east by south from London. Reculver once occupied a strategic location at the north-western end of the Wantsum Channel, between the Isle of Thanet and the Kent mainland. This led the Romans to build a small fort there at the time of their conquest of Britain in 43 AD, and, starting late in the 2nd century, they built a larger fort, or "castrum", called Regulbium, which later was part of the chain of Saxon Shore forts. The military connection resumed in the Second World War, when Barnes Wallis's bouncing bombs were tested in the sea off Reculver.

After the Romans left Britain in the early 5th century, Reculver became a landed estate of the Anglo-Saxon kings of Kent. The site of the Roman fort was given over for the establishment of a monastery dedicated to St Mary in 669 AD, and King Eadberht II of Kent was buried there in the 760s. During the Middle Ages Reculver was a thriving township with a weekly market and a yearly fair, and it was a member of the Cinque Port of Sandwich. The twin spires of the church became a landmark for mariners known as the "Twin Sisters", supposedly after daughters of Geoffrey St Clare, and the 19th century facade of St John's Cathedral in Parramatta, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, is a copy of that at Reculver.

Reculver declined as the Wantsum Channel silted up, and coastal erosion claimed many buildings constructed on the soft sandy cliffs. The village was largely abandoned in the late 18th century, and most of the church was demolished in the early 19th century. Protecting the ruins and the rest of Reculver from erosion is an ongoing challenge.

The 20th century saw a revival as a tourism industry developed and there are now three caravan parks. The census of 2001 recorded 135 people in the Reculver area, nearly a quarter of whom were in caravans at the time. Reculver Country Park is a Special Protection Area and Site of Special Scientific Interest, which has rare clifftop meadows and is important for migrating birds.

History

Toponymy

The earliest recorded form of the name, Regulbium, was Celtic in origin, meaning "at the promontory", or "great headland", and, in Old English, this became corrupted to Raculf, sometimes given as Raculfceastre, giving rise to the modern "Reculver". The form "Raculfceastre" includes the Old English place-name element "ceaster", which frequently relates to "a [Roman] city or walled town".

Stone Age flint tools have been washed out from the cliffs to the west of Reculver, and a Mesolithic tranchet axe was found at Reculver in 1960, but this was probably a casual loss. Evidence for human settlement at Reculver begins with late Bronze Age and Iron Age ditches, which indicate an "extensive phased settlement", where a Bronze Age palstave and Iron Age gold coins have been found. This was followed by a Roman "fortlet" dating to their conquest of Britain, which began in 43 AD, and a full-size Roman fort, or "castrum", called Regulbium, which was started late in the 2nd century: this date is derived in part from a re-construction of a uniquely detailed plaque, fragments of which were found by archaeologists in the 1960s. The plaque effectively records the establishment of the fort, since it records the construction of two of its principal buildings, the basilica and the sacellum. These were found by archaeologists, together with probable officers' quarters, barracks and a bath house. A Roman oven was also found 200 feet (61 m) south-east of the fort, which was probably used for drying food such as corn and fish: the main chamber of the oven measured about 16 feet (4.9 m) by 15 feet (4.8 m) overall, and was found to be "unique and cleverly engineered".

The fort's location at the north-eastern extremity of mainland Kent was strategic, lying as it did at the "main point of contact in the system [of Saxon Shore forts]", and allowing observation from the fort on all sides. The entrance to the headquarters building, or "principia", faced north, indicating that the fort's main gate was on its north side, facing the promontory and the sea. The fort was connected to the network of Roman roads through a link to Canterbury, about 8.5 miles (14 km) to the south-west. It must also have had a harbour nearby, and, though this has not yet been found, it was probably near to the fort's southern or eastern side. Roman forts were normally accompanied by a civilian settlement, or "vicus", and it is clear that significant Roman structures and features existed outside the north and west sides of the fort, mostly in areas now lost to the sea, and that the vicus at Reculver was "extensive". It may have covered "some ten hectares [25 acres] in all."

Towards the end of the 3rd century, a Roman naval commander named Carausius was given the task of clearing pirates from the sea between the Roman provinces in Britain, or "Britannia", and on the European mainland. In so doing he established a new chain of command, the British part of which was later to pass under the control of a Count of the Saxon Shore. The Notitia Dignitatum, a Roman administrative document of the early 5th century, shows that the fort at Reculver became part of this arrangement, but archaeological evidence indicates that it was abandoned in the 360s.

After the Roman occupation of Britain ended in about 410, Reculver became a landed estate of the Anglo-Saxon kings of Kent, possibly with a royal toll-station or a "significant coastal trading settlement," given the types and quantity of coins found there. Other early Anglo-Saxon items found at Reculver include a fragment of a gilt bronze brooch, or "fibula", which was originally circular and set with coloured stones or glass, a claw beaker, and pottery. King Æthelberht of Kent was traditionally said to have moved his royal court there from Canterbury in about 597, for example by John Duncombe in 1784, and to have built a palace on the site of the Roman ruins; but archaeological excavation has shown no evidence of this, and the story has been described as probably a "pious legend". A church was built on the site of the Roman fort in about 669, when King Ecgberht of Kent granted land for the foundation of a monastery there, which was dedicated to St Mary.

The monastery developed as the centre of a "large estate, a manor and a parish", and, by the early 9th century, it had become "extremely wealthy", but it then fell under the control of the archbishops of Canterbury. By the 10th century the church and the estate were in the hands of the kings of Wessex, though the church may have remained a monastery, despite the likelihood of Viking attacks. The church and the estate were given back to the archbishops of Canterbury in 949 by King Eadred of England, at which time the estate centred on Reculver included Hoath, Herne and land in the west of the Isle of Thanet.

By 1066 the monastery had become a parish church. However, in 1086 Reculver was named in Domesday Book as a hundred, with the estate centred on Reculver valued at £42.7s. (£42.35); and, in the 13th century, the parish of Reculver remained one of "exceptional wealth". The church building was extended considerably during the Middle Ages, including the addition of the towers in the 12th century, indicating that the settlement at Reculver had become a "thriving township", with "dozens of houses". The parish was broken up in 1310, when chapelries at Herne and, on the Isle of Thanet, St Nicholas-at-Wade and All Saints, were converted into parishes, though Hoath was still a perpetual curacy belonging to Reculver parish in the 19th century. Records for the poll tax of 1377 show that there were then 364 individuals of 14 years and above, not including "honest beggars", in the reduced parish of Reculver.

By 1540, when John Leland recorded a visit to Reculver, the coastline had receded to within little more than a quarter of a mile (402 m) of the "Towne [which] at this tyme [was] but Village lyke". Soon after, in 1576, William Lambarde described Reculver as "poore and simple". In 1588, there were 165 communicants – people in Reculver parish taking part in services of holy communion at the church – and in 1640 there were 169, but a map of "about 1630" shows that the church then stood only about 500 feet (152 m) from the shore, and the village's failure to support two "beer shops" in the 1660s points clearly to a dwindling population. The village was mostly abandoned around the end of the 18th century, its residents moving to Hillborough, about 1.25 miles (2 km) south-west of Reculver, but within Reculver parish, where a new parish church was opened in 1813. At about this time,

By 1800, there were only five or six houses left at Reculver, inhabited "mostly by fishermen and smugglers", and in 1821 Reculver was described as a principal station for the "Smuggling Preventive Service". Work began to demolish the old church in 1805, but Trinity House intervened to ensure that the towers were preserved as a navigational aid. In 1810 it bought what was left of the structure, and built the first groynes, designed to protect the cliff on which it stands.

The vicarage was abandoned at the same time as the church, or a little earlier. When the Hoy and Anchor Inn fell into the sea, the redundant vicarage was used as a temporary replacement under the same name. Despite the report in 1800 that there were then only five or six houses left at Reculver, a new Hoy and Anchor Inn was built by 1809, and this was renamed as the "King Ethelbert Inn" in the 1830s. Further construction work is indicated by a stone over the doorway to the inn bearing a date of 1843, and it was later extended into the form in which it stands today, "probably… in 1883". Today the site of the church is managed by English Heritage, and the village has all but disappeared. In 2000 the surviving fragments of an early medieval cross which once stood inside the old church were used to design a Millennium Cross to commemorate two thousand years of Christianity. This stands at the entrance to the car park and was commissioned by Canterbury City Council.'

Type: Ruin Fee: Free Hours: Daylight Hours Related URL: [Web Link]

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