The Discovery of an elaborate Roman Drying-oven at Reculver
A particularly interesting and unusual discovery was made by accident at Reculver in October, 1963. Only brief reports of the discovery have so far appeared and this more detailed account is offered as an interim pending publication in a more complete form.
The discovery was made about 200 feet south-east of the Roman fort at a point entirely surrounded by holiday caravans. Workmen digging foundation- trenches for a new wash-room cut through the walls of a hitherto unknown Roman building. The find was not understood by them and no attempt was made to report the discovery. Their plans were to fill the trenches with concrete and to destroy most of the building by subsequent work. A routine site-inspection by members of the Reculver Group, however, detected the structure and immediate emergency recording began.
The negotiations which followed involved the Ministry of Public Building and Works, the Herne Bay Council, the Contractors and the Reculver Group. These resulted in a settlement entirely satisfactory to all parties. The Contractors, suitably squared, began again 150 feet to the north and the archaeological excavation of the Roman building commenced.
The structure was found to include a number of highly unusual features (Figs. 1 and 2). It comprised a single, deep chamber about 15 feet square overall. dug some 4 feet below Roman ground-level. The walls were about two feet thick and made of flint, tile and sandstone blocks held in stiff clay. The east wall was solid, but the others were found to be hollow. Channels 24 inches high and 12 inches wide ran down the length of the insides of the walls and joined at the corners. These channels were connected to the interior of the chamber by fifteen small vents, seven in each of the side walls and one large one in the centre of the west side.
The channels inside the walls led into a substantial arched flue on the west side which was partially blocked by a large sandstone block set up on end. It was later found that the flue was nine feet long and led into a substantial stoke-hole.
The evidence was discussed with the late Professor 1. A. Richmond and it seems that the structure was an elaborate drying-oven without parallel elsewhere. The fire for this would have been laid in the arched flue and fed from the stoke- hole. The tiles in the arch were severely burnt and the clay bonding had turned orange. The flames and heat would have been deflected by the large block, also heavily burnt, into the north and south channels. The resulting hot air would then have passed along the channels and out into the central chamber through the various vents.
The air was moved by draughts induced by the varying sizes of the vents. The central vent in each set of seven was the largest and the others diminished progressively in each direction. Heating and ventilating engineers who studied the system were impressed by the clever construction and the knowledge of basic principles. They also calculated that the aggregate of the vertical areas of the 15 vents equalled that of the main flue.
A central partition wall, built on a bed of flints, was found to have divided the chamber into two parts. This may have supported racks on which the material to be dried was laid. No industrial residue was found in or near the structure and it seems that whatever was dried must have been of a perishable nature. Of several suggestions, ranging from sea-weed to Ancient Britons, the most probable is that it was used for corn-drying. In all probability this drying-oven was constructed by the military garrison sometime during the third century A.D. The flue and two vents had subsequently been blocked and the drying- chamber itself converted into a furnace. The partition wall was demolished and the internal face of the chamber baked hard by intense heat.
At the end of the excavation the site was filled in and grass-sown. The area now forms part of the caravan-site and the great majority of holiday-makers are unaware of the archaeology beneath their feet. The repositioning of the ablutions has proved a considerable advantage. The journey from the site has been shortened by some 50 yards and this has resulted in a corresponding increase in the amount of work completed.
BRIAN PHILP
