During excavation work for proposed community supermarket, a series of foreshore deposits were found suggesting a sloping shingle or sand bank. Deposits found, a coin and pottery fragments, date to between 1150 - 1350. The most significant aspect of this phase of the results is that it substantiates that the mid 13th century New Romney sea front was located roughly on the alignment of the modern-day Dymchurch Road.(1)

"The excavations, located to the northeast of town along the strand, reflect the development of that area for shore-based fishing activities, boat building, breaking and repair but also provide evidence for the storms that ravaged the coastline in the later 13th century." (2)

"Phases 2–7 represent a very short, yet intense, period of the site’s history when this area of the south coast was subject to frequent storms. This has resulted in the mixing and redeposition of much material and precise dating from recovered finds is difficult." (2)

Phase 1: The Early Medieval Topography; a Shingle Bank and Foreshore
Phase 2: 13th-Century Activity on the Foreshore
Phase 3: Storm Deposits
Phase 4: Building Construction on the Beach Front
Phase 5: Abandonment and Accumulation of Dumped Material
Phase 6: Further Building Construction on the Beach Front
Phase 7: Storm Damage and Attempts at Consolidation

Phase 4 building features:
"There was no evidence for any superstructure and given the limited remains excavated it is not possible to determine the form of this building with any certainty, although the beam slot suggests a building constructed of timber, clay or wattle and daub. The wall return to the southwest and the pit to the north suggest an approximate width of 4m for the building." (2)

"Further structural features assigned to Phase 4 were uncovered in Trench 5 along the southwestern site boundary. Two postholes and the fragment of a beam slot foundation, 2.2m in length and 0.22m wide, running parallel to the present site limit were uncovered here. Associated pottery dated to between 1150 and 1350. These features appear to have formed part of a medieval fence or wall line, though could conceivably be the fragmentary remains of a timber-framed building." (2)

Phase 6 building:
"Evidence of a substantial building was found in Area A, overlying the footprint of Building 1 and extending somewhat beyond it, apparently representing a replacement for that building, rebuilt on a more substantial scale. This was demonstrably in use for some time, as it had been re-floored at least twice during its lifetime. The main room of the building, aligned northeast to southwest, perpendicular to the beachfront, was c. 7m in width and at least 11m long… The building had trench-built foundations [167] filled with a layer of crushed greensand, gravel and mortar, capped with a layer of large rounded cobbles, measuring up to 0.3m across, set in mortar. This foundation appears to have served as a dry-course for a timber-framed construction… The gravel, mortar and cobble foundation is likely to have supported the base plate of a timber-framed two-storey house… The building probably had a workshop or working area at the front end, facing the sea and fronting onto Dymchurch Road. Almost certainly the property would have been associated either directly with fishing or with a trade dealing with the maintenance, repair or making of things relevant to boats or fishing, or alternatively to the commerce coming in over the strand." (2)

The site produced a significant assemblage of Medieval pottery dating largely to the 13th century, including local pottery, Thames Valley wares and Yorkshire wares, and imported pottery from France, the Low Countries and Germany."The imported wares are also important as an indicator of the trade and contact this Cinque Port had with the continent." (2)

"A substantial assemblage of iron nails was recovered at the Southlands School site. This group of material is indicative of ship-building or breaking activities"… "at the Southlands School site we are concerned with a representative sample of distinctive ship rivets or ‘rovenails’, which have only been found in a very narrow range of use contexts in later medieval England. By far the most common use was in ship- and boat-building (Milne et al. 1998, 62), but they have also been found in some church and other high status doors (Hewett 1982, 78)."

"Thus, in a port location, for the period with which we are concerned here we would expect to find square-shanked iron rovenails on sites where clinker built vessels were either being repaired or broken up, or where the timbers were being reused as fuel or for structural purposes either in new vessels or ‘land’ structures." (2)

"Several rove strip ends were found during work at the Southlands School site... These broken rove strips can be taken as clear evidence of the work of medieval shipwrights where they were found or close by". (2)

"An axially perforated cattle phalange (Fig. 63.5 <31>) from a Phase 7 storm deposited context has been filled with a lead plug… It has been suggested that a series of weighted phalanges of this type would have been strung together on a line, acting as jiggers to attract the attention of fish" (2)

"Given the recovery of a Long Cross penny from underlying Phase 3 deposits, the upper floor layer must have been laid down after 1247 at the earliest". (2)

The extensive finds assemblage from the site also included medieval brooches, buckles, a strap end, a key, a netting needle, fishing weights and hooks, roves and rove strips for ship building, a lead spindle whorl, CBM and eight stratified medieval coins.

Regarding Phase 7 deposits: "Numerous varied personal finds are further indicators of the nature of life on the foreshore. The group includes four copper-alloy strap ends, a lead token and a lead cloth seal. In addition there are a lead weighted sheep/goat phalange for the game of knuckle bones, a fragment of copper-alloy sheeting, a rim fragment of a copper-alloy vessel and a lead plug for repairing holed ceramic vessels, as well as five lead fishing net weights and a fragment of an iron fish hook, two copper-alloy buckles, two mounts, two copper-alloy brooches and one silver one." (2)

Sixteen difference species were found withing the animal bone assemblage, including six mammal species, three bird species and seven fish species.

This record has been mapped using points to indicate the location of evidence for buildings in phases 4 and 6, and a polygon to indicate the approximate area of foreshore deposits located by this excavation. These deposits are likely to continue to the east and west in particular.

<1> Pre-Construct Archaeology, 2002, An Assessment of Archaeological Excavations on the Site of Southlands School, Fairfield Road, New Romney (Unpublished document). SKE8381.

<2> Pre-Construct Archaeology, 2009, The Sea and the Marsh: The Medieval Cinque Port of New Romney (Monograph). SKE32391.