Plate 1a: Well after removing the stones

This well was associated with some Roman occupation layers (some of them were probably floors) which had also been largely destroyed by the mediaeval ditch (layers 4, 5, 5a, 7). These layers contained samian and coarse pottery, together with other debris of a domestic character, including a few small white tesserae and some red brick tesserae. The pottery all belonged to the period from late 1st cent. to late 2nd cent.

Clearly there had been a Roman house here before the town was enclosed and the defensive ditches had been cut right through the site. We subsequently found surviving in the space between the inner and outer ditches, the remains of a substantial wall belonging to this house; it appeared to be about four feet thick and was built of large flints set in pink mortar. A small fragment of painted wall plaster was recovered from the wall and there were traces of a mortar floor built against it on its west side.

It was not possible to study the inner ditch in a single section at the Palace bastion site because of disturbance not only by the bastion itself but also by rubbish pits of about the 17th cent. The bottom of the ditch was obtained in T.1 but its upper part was better seen in some of the squares cut to the east of the bastion (A.2, B.2, C.2); the various portions have been combined on the drawing. The ditch had originally been V-shaped, like a normal Roman military ditch, with a small channel at the bottom, the width of a shovel.

The ground level in Roman times must have been about level with the top surface of the wall footing, that is, about the top of layer 4 on the section. This gives a depth of 6ft. 6in. for the ditch. Its original width can only be guessed; by continuing the V-shape up to the Roman surface we obtain a width of about 17ft. The trench outside the West Walls (T.2) gave another section across the inner ditch which fully confirmed the results obtained in T.1 and the squares.

The various layers filling the inner ditch correspond at the two sites but there is an extra layer (T.1, layer 6) at the bastion site. This layer contained many lumps of flint and of roughly worked stone (upper greensand and limestone) as well as pieces of Roman tile and fragments of pink and yellow mortar. This debris corresponds with the materials composing the bastion and the layer must have been deposited at the time when the bastion was constructed. The inner ditch was, therefore, filled in before the upper part of the bastion was built.

The two lowest layers at each site (T.1, layers 11, 12; T.2, layers 21, 34) consist of silt and clay and represent the natural silting of the ditch and the tumble from its sides by weathering. Soil sample D from T.1 resembles the natural clay in this region. The two layers above the silting (T.1, layers 9, 10; T.2. layers 6b, 20) represent a deliberate filling of the inner ditch with material dug from the outer ditch at the time when it was enlarged (bastion period). This is most convincingly demonstrated in T.2, where Roman pottery, including samian ware, together with bones and oyster shells, a scrap of green glass and Roman building debris were incorporated in layer 20.

This material can only have come from digging into the site of the Roman house (described above) which existed here before the defences were made and lay in the path of the outer ditch. Part of the outer ditch was found in T.1 but the Lavant prevented us from obtaining a complete section. The Lavant also obstructed the excavation of T.2, where the 19th cent. brick culvert occupied the middle of the ditch. The broad mediaeval ditch was clearly recognisable in both sections (T.1, layer 5; T. 2, layers 14b, 24) but both the shape and the filling of the ditch below this were puzzling. Instead of the presupposed wide Roman ditch, our sections both showed a ditch, the lower part of which was V-shaped and very similar to the inner ditch.

Miss R. Finey made a careful study of the soils composing the ditch-filling at both sites and her report is given below. In T.1, the soil sample (sample 7) from layer 7 indicated that the bottom of the ditch had silted up with mud which had almost dried out before the layer above it had been deposited. There were no finds in this grey silt. Layer 6, above it, was a different kind of silt, greyish brown in colour and containing fine sand and numerous small snail shells.

It must be interpreted as the bottom of a different and later ditch which held a shallow layer of water, into which had tumbled a number of large flints; the silt also contained particles of brick, mortar and chalk and some bone fragments of ox, pig, horse and dog. Layer 5 is apparently the silting of the mediaeval ditch, the soil sample (sample 5) indi-
cating material deposited in a foot or two of slowly running water.

Comparable results were obtained in T.2. Here, layer 14c corresponds with T.1I, layer 6 and the silt below it with layer 7; layer 14b corresponds with T.1, layer 5. Each section therefore shows the presence of three ditches, dug at different times, the latest being mediaeval. The earliest so closely resembles the V-shaped inner ditch that we must conclude that they are a contemporary pair; the first defences of Roman Chichester therefore consisted of a wall and two ditches. The remaining ditch, wider and flatter in shape, must be the one which was dug when the bastions were built.

We know that " the wall and turrets ..... for want of repair, had become ruinous " before the 14th cent.( S.A.C. 90, 1951-52, 180, quoting lhe entry in the Patent Rolls of 1377-8), which would account for the large flints and other building debris found in the silting of this late Roman ditch.

How did the mediaeval ditch-diggers dispose of their spoil? Much of it has since silted or been thrown back into the ditch and some has probably been carried away by water flowing through the ditch but there is still a considerable thickness of soil of post-Roman date covering the whole area outside the walls; we can only suppose that the spoil was spread on both sides of the ditch.