Reculver

Reculver is a village and coastal resort about east of Herne Bay on the north coast of Kent in south-east England.
It is in the ward of the same name, in the City of Canterbury district of Kent.

Reculver once occupied a strategic location at the north-western end of the Wantsum Channel, a sea lane that separated the Isle of Thanet and the Kent mainland until the late Middle Ages. 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 became one of the chain of Saxon Shore forts. Following the withdrawal of the Western Roman Empire in ca. early C4th, the Brythons again took control of the lands until Anglo-Saxon invasions shortly afterward.

By the 7th century Reculver had become 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 settlement 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 local tourism developed and there are now two caravan parks. The census of 2001 recorded 135 people in the Reculver area, nearly a quarter of whom were in caravans at the time. The Reculver coastline is within a Site of Special Scientific Interest, a Special Protection Area and a Ramsar site, including most of Reculver Country Park, which itself includes much of Bishopstone Cliffs local nature reserve. While nationally scarce plants and insects are found there, the location is also important for migrating birds and is of significant geological interest.

History

Toponymy

The earliest recorded form of the name, ''Regulbium'', is in Latin and dates from the early 5th century or before, but it had its origin in a Common Brittonic word meaning "at the promontory" or "great headland". 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 omancity or walled town".

Prehistoric and Roman

Stone Age flint tools have been washed out from the cliffs to the west of Reculver, and a Mesolithic tranchet axe was found near the centre of the Roman fort in 1960. This was probably an accidental loss, rather than suggesting a human settlement, evidence for which begins with late Bronze Age and Iron Age ditches. These indicate an extensive settlement, where a Bronze Age palstave and Iron Age gold coins have been found. This was followed by a "fortlet" built by the Romans during their conquest of Britain, which began in 43 AD, and the existence of a Roman road leading to Canterbury, about to the south-west, indicates a Roman presence at Reculver from then onwards. A full-size fort, or ''castrum'', was started late in the 2nd century. This date is derived in part from a reconstruction 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 commemorates the construction of two of its principal features, the ''basilica'' and the '' sacellum'', or shrine, both being parts of the headquarters building, or ''principia'':

These structures were found by archaeologists, together with probable officers' quarters, barracks and a bath house. A Roman oven found south-east of the fort was probably used for drying food such as corn and fish; its main chamber measured about 16 feet (4.9 m) by 15 feet (4.8 m) overall.

The fort was located on a low hill, beyond which a long promontory then projected north-eastwards into the sea and formed the north-eastern extremity of mainland Kent: thus it offered observation on all sides, including both the Thames Estuary and the sea lane later known as the Wantsum Channel, which lay between it and the Isle of Thanet. It was probably built by soldiers of the ''Cohors I Baetasiorum'', originally from Lower Germany, who had previously served at the Roman fort of '' Alauna'' at Maryport in Cumbria at least until the early 180s, since tiles recovered from the fort are stamped "CIB". The '' Notitia Dignitatum'', a Roman administrative document from the early 5th century, also records the presence of the ''Cohors I Baetasiorum'' at Reculver, then known as ''Regulbium''.; . There must also have been a harbour nearby in Roman times, and, though this has not yet been found, it was probably near to the fort's southern or eastern side.

The walls of the fort originally stood about high and were thick at their base, reducing to at the top; they were reinforced internally by an earthen bank. The entrance to the fort's headquarters building faced north, indicating that the main gate was on the north side, facing the eponymous promontory and the sea. The north wall has been lost to the sea, along with the adjoining part of the east wall and most of the west wall; the east wall is most complete and includes the remains of the eastern gateway and guard post. Parts of the surviving walls are all that remains of the fort above ground, and all have suffered from stone-robbing, especially near the south-western corner. The walls were originally faced with ragstone, but very little of this remains: otherwise only the cores of the walls are visible, consisting mostly of flint and concrete and standing only high at their highest.

Roman forts were normally accompanied by a civilian settlement, or '' vicus'': at Reculver this lay outside the north and west sides of the fort, much of it in areas now lost to the sea, and was extensive, perhaps covering "some ten hectares 5 acresin all." In 1936 R.F. Jessup noted that "a Roman building with a hypocaust and tesselated loor oncestood considerably to the northward of the fort": this structure had been observed by the 18th-century antiquarian John Battely, and was probably "an external bath relating to n early phase ofthe fort." In the same area Battely described "several cisterns" between 10 and 12 feet (3–3.7 m) square, lined with oak planks and sealed at the bottom with puddled clay. He believed that these were for storing rainwater, and noted that a Roman strigil, which would have been used in a bath house, had been found in a similar cistern at Reculver; he also observed that "such a multitude f cisternshas been discovered, almost in our memory, as proves that the ancient inhabitants of the place were very numerous." In the 20th century twelve wells of the Roman period were identified to the west of the fort, ten of which were square; all were cut into the hard layer of sandstone below the soft sandstone of the Thanet Beds

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