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XXIII.—On the Position of the Portus Lemanis of the Romans
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2012
Extract
The Portus Lemanis must clearly have been one of the great thoroughfares between Britain and the Continent, and it is not a little singular that the position of a port once so famous should never have been satisfactorily settled. The common impression is that it lay at the foot of Lymne Hill. For the benefit of those who are not familiar with this neighbourhood, I should mention, in limine, that the village of Lymne or Lympne stands about 2½ miles to the west of Hythe, on the highest part of the cliff which girds in the eastern portion of Romney Marsh. On the declivity of the hill, about half-way down, is seen the old Roman castrum, called Stuttfall, occupying 10 or 12 acres. There are walls on the north, east, and west, and the east and west walls run down to the marsh itself; but, what is remarkable, the south side towards the marsh had never any wall,” and hence the erroneous notion so generally prevalent that at the foot of the castrum was once the Portus Lemanis, and that in the course of ages the sea retired from Lymne, when the port shifted to West Hythe, and that the sea again retired, when the port was transferred to Hythe. I shall endeavour to show that these changes, if they ever occurred, must have preceded the historic period, and that in the time of the Romans, as for many centuries afterwards, the only port was Hythe. In fact Portus and Hythe are the same thing, Portus in Latin being Hyð in Saxon.
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- Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1867
References
page 361 note a This fact was ascertained some years since by cutting a cross trench.
page 363 note a It is upwards of 350 feet high.
page 364 note a Mr. Thurston's Communication to C. R. Smith, Bichborough and Reculver, p. 254.
page 364 note b Harris's History of Kent, p. 367.
page 365 note a It was lent to some one and never returned.
page 365 note b A friend considers it a coin of Gordian. It has a hole in it, and apparently has been worn for ornament. Possibly, therefore, it may have been dropped in the marsh by a Saxon.
page 366 note a Keport for September, 1844, p. 115.
page 366 note b Hasted's Hist, of Kent, vol. iii. p. 412.
page 366 note c See Cesar's Invasion of Britain, by T. Lewin, 2nd Edition, p. cxxi.
page 366 note d Decline and Fall, ch. 31, note. See State of Britain, A.D. 409–449.
page 367 note a As Dubris is evidently the ablative, the nominative case must have been Dubrse. The more correct form of the word was probably Durbse, as the name is derived from the stream on which it stands, the Dour, or in Celtic Dwr, the water.
page 367 note b See Kemble's Codex.
page 367 note a There can be no doubt that the chalk cliffs furnish a great part of the flints, as the chalk is often observed adhering to the flints.
page 369 note a Elliott's paper on Romney Marsh, Transact, of Civ. Eng. vol. vi. Caesar's Invasion of Britain, by T. Lewin, p. civ.
page 369 note b Is not the word Dowles to be derived from the Celtic word “Dol, a meadow or dale in the bend of a river,” a description which so exactly represented the Dowles when the river Limen was diverted along the Rhee wall to Romney ? If a part of Romney marsh was named by the Ancient Britons, the marsh itself must have been reclaimed by them, as Mr. Smiles supposes.
page 370 note a Hasted's Kent, vol.iii. pp. 435,441.
page 370 note b And see Csesar's Invasion of Britain, by T. Lewin, 2nd ed. p. lv.
page 373 note a See the finding of the jury in 11 Edw. III. (A.D. 1337), Holloway's Hist, of Romney Marsh, p. 105.
page 373 note b Harris's Hist, of Kent, p. 183.
page 373 note c Holloway's Hist, of the Marsh, p. 99.
page 374 note a Kemble's Codex, chart. 77.