By Michael Fulford and Stephen Rippon
ISBN: 978-1-874350-55-2
Survey and excavations undertaken on behalf of English Heritage on the site of the medieval Keep revealed important evidence for its construction, development, repairs and decay between c. 1200 and the 15th century. The Keep was in such a poor state of repair by the late 16th century that it came to be filled with clay and used as an artillery platform against the threat of the Armada. In the Second World War it was refortified once again.
Deep excavation behind and below the eastern wall of the Keep provided new dendrochronological evidence for a late 3rd century construction of the Roman fort wall and for its occupation from the end of the 3rd century and through the late Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Saxo-Norman periods. For the first time in south-east England imports of African Red Slipped Ware are attested in the 5th and the 7th centuries. The finds and environmental chapters include major reports on the Roman to Post-medieval pottery (Timby), the faunal remains (Powell and Serjeantson), the marine molluscs (Somerville) and soil micromorphology (Macphail).