A Walk around Pevensey Castle

Roman Wall by the West Gate

Having visited Richborough and Reculver in Kent it seemed a good idea to wobble down to Pevensey and see what else the Romans had done. They get everywhere these Romans, building fortresses, Villas and sea ports, walls around settlements and towns and roads. We are well aware of the extent of their works and at times and in many places we can see the ruins of Roman walls and marvel at the size and thickness of their constructions. At Reculver we have to imagine the Roman built portions - the evidence is in the shape of the later buildings and the section of wall beside the Pub. Richborough is better with a clear idea of what might have been and an excellent reconstruction display although a wander around the site will reveal much about what was there.

North Tower

Watling street that reputedly extends as far as the Isle of Angelsey begins modestly as a wide track and can be followed on the map to the present A2 main road and traced up through the A5 if you are so inclined.



However, Pevensey is where it is at and here we can see some of the best examples of Roman construction and some good examples of medieval castle construction. Which ever way you come from Pevensey is between Bexhill and Eastbourne and can be reached via the A22 and A27 to the A259 or from the A21 through Battle on the A271 to Hailsham and follow the A22, A27 route from there.

Customers enjoying the tearooms

There is a car park directly by the castle - cost £2 for the day and an excellent tearooms close by the castle walls. The tearooms are run to serve organic and locally resourced foods with the preparation and cooking done on the premises. Very little is brought in and coffee, which was excellent, is fair trade. Better than pub food - the bar variety - and with the option of alcoholic beverages - the tearooms are a good idea for the visitor although the pubs are good too.



A walk around the village reveals a museum, formerly a court and lock-up which is well worth the visit and a church tucked away between the village and the wild life area and sports recreation ground complete with the church farm project.

The Court House and Jail

The castle itself utilises the Roman enclosure but with the addition of a moat on the north side. The keep was built in the 12th century with possibly a wooden palisades in the wreck of the inner bailey and later in the 13th century the addition of the outer walls and towers to complete the inner bailey. A feature of the castle is the well preserved Roman walls of the west gatehouse. Quite impressive.

Tudor Gun

The castle was used as a garrison at times to repel invasion from the French, naughty French chappies raiding our coastlines, which seems a little ironic when the Normans conquered the land after the Romans had given up, and of course the Saxons ( Germans?) (Angles and others) had their share of the cake chucking most of the Brits out. Once used as a prison and during WWII parts of it were converted to pill boxes bristling with machine guns to repel the expected German invasion. Earlier during Elizabeth I's reign to help repel the invasion of the Spanish Armada a gun emplacement was stuck on the embankment facing Pevensey Bay. The gun itself remains but the carriage it is resting on is a replica. It doesn't look very useful. At least by then it would have fired iron balls and not dirty great lumps of stone.

If one should be so lucky as to get to Pevensey early in the day a pleasant walk from the car park, through the castle environs and past the Westham church, cross the railway line and wander on from there eventually turning back from the sea - I did not walk these parts - and explore the area more fully. I kept close to the railway line doing a short circuit back to the castle which was the reason for my visit.

Pevensey Church

It was a pleasant afternoon topped off by and excellent very late lunch of sandwiches filled with local produce on locally baked brown bread and a cup of delicious coffee. Cor!

What did the Romans do for us?

I decided that the last day of the half term break excluding the weekend which I would have off anyway should be a day of recreation. So, after doing some chores in the morning, apologising to the cat for leaving her on her own and doing a couple of tasks downtown I set off for Sandwich and the Roman port of Richborough. The Romans called the place Rutupiae and I expect that was what it was called for many centuries. The ruins - although if you look at from my perspective you could say that since AD43 the Roman builders have taken a heck of a long time to finish the place. You can see the foundations and the rest of the buildings but without the reconstruction it is a little difficult to immediately imagine the finished fort.

A view of the interior

The walls, in spite of my comments about not finishing them, are impressive and are well worth a look to see the pains taken over the construction. If the Romans used slave labor then there must have been some skilled slaves or some extremely vigilant overseers. The construction engineering alone is impressive without the concept of what the wall was for - to keep people out and as a platform from which to kill them if they tried to get in. This item cannot do justice to Rutupiae but I will attempt to paint a picture of the fortress. Imagine a large area clear of vegetation other than a few trees close to a river which was once much wider and part of an inlet - the Wantsum - and the fort was set on an island. Ships could dock at its foot as can be seen by the lie of the land where there is a low escarpment and the logical placement of the original roads and gates. The roads that start from the landing place cut through the emplacements to the fourway arch and head North, East South and West with the west gate leading out across the land as the start of the main Roman road through Kent.

The wooden bridge to the left crossing the ditch is the start of Watling Street (Is this the A2?)

The amazing thing is also to learn that Richborough was the start of the road we know as Watling Street and when you see where it started along with the reconstruction you can with a stretch of the imagination and with the aid of a modern map begin to see where this history stuff kicks in.

As a complementary part of the trip I continued to the coast again close to Whitstable and stopped off at Reculver where at one time there would have been a Roman establishment that although not as elaborate as Richborough would nevertheless be a garrison to help protect trade and such on the Wantsum. Today all we see is the towers of the massive church that was once there and evidence of Roman walls close to the pub. I did not have time to take the walk around Reculver but from what I can see from the leaflet I picked up in the pub it is a good stride around the place. Like Richborough it is a bit flat and bleak but what can you expect from a coastal region? However, the towers are worth a visit and I was happy to see a family with children playing running and wrestling games where once Romans and their eventual usurpers trod, worshipped and did normal Roman things.

A Roaming Rabbit at Rutupiae - is this a direct descendent of the creatures the Romans brought with them?

And naturally we have to look at what the Romans did for us - they created trade, roads, brought new ideas, new foods, beat the daylights out of us, the idea of cheap labor and of course the dear, furry little bunny. But I d recommend taking a look at Richborough and relating its impact if you can to the modern world.