Excavations undertaken by Canterbury Archaeological Trust in the St. James area of Dover revealed a number of medieval features, including rubbish dumps, levelling layers and trodden chalk floors relating to a complex succession of timber buildings, probably dwellings, of mostly a late 12th to 13th century date. At least four separate, successive building were identified all of which were similar in form to the those uncovered during the 1996 excavation of the BP filling station. Each building was characterised by chalk and clay floors interleaved with a number of thin ashy occupation layers. The earliest structures had been built on wet, marshy ground and in order to consolidate this unstable land layers of massive chalk boulders and beach single had been laid. A particular detail of some interest was the north–south orientation of the medieval buildings identified in 2015. This stood in marked contrast to the nearby buildings of 1996 which were consistently aligned broadly north-west by south-east or north-east by south-west. Clearly, some sort of change had occurred in the nature of the medieval building layout between these two areas. This could well be a reflection of variations in the local coastal topography.(1)

<1> Keith Parfitt, 2018, Dover St James redevelopment. Interim report on archaeological excavation 2018 (Unpublished document). SKE51627.