Ancient Roman House reopened in Dover

It had originally opened in the 1970s, but was poorly maintained.   Finn Macdiarmid reports.

Transcript

00:00A piece of Dover's history has been opened to the public and it's older than Canterbury

00:04Cathedral, Rochester Castle and the Tower of London.

00:08The Roman painted house is an ancient ruin with unique painted walls and underfloor heating

00:13that was excavated all the way back in the 1970s.

00:16Back in July 2023, there was a miscommunication between the council and the house's trust.

00:22Locks were changed and no work or maintenance was done, causing mould to form and the site

00:27to fall into disrepair.

00:29According to the Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit.

00:32Afterwards, the lease was returned to the council before it was recently reopened as

00:36part of Dover's Heritage Open Weekend.

00:39Well historians were able to match the age of the Roman painted house thanks to some

00:43minted coins that were found inside, proving it was constructed around 176 AD.

00:50Now when it was dug up in the 1970s, archaeologists were actually looking for part of a much larger

00:56fort.

00:57This fort was called the Classis Britannia and was a naval barracks that sat in the Valley

01:01of Dover, which at the time was called Debris, and had two lighthouses that could guide sailors

01:07to the nearby port.

01:08One of those lighthouses will eventually be where Dover Castle now stands.

01:12Now there are a few differing opinions on what exactly the painted house was.

01:15In the building itself, we don't know for sure exactly what it would have been.

01:22One end could have been for something, but we're pretty sure because of the central heating

01:29underneath, the hypercourse, that it was for moneyed people, senators and people with money

01:37coming from a long voyage over from Calais.

01:40Here they would need to put their head down and have a nice hotel to sleep in.

01:43Since the site's opening in the 70s, it's seen a total of 700,000 visitors, and the

01:49District Council hope they can continue to get visitors through the door to experience

01:53some of Dover's Roman legacy.

01:55The future could be massively exciting because there's still finds that are yet to be uncovered

02:03out on the Roman lawn.

02:06This building's only got a certain shelf life.

02:09It's going to take a lot of funding, so we're going to need a lot of help to do it.

02:15But it could be really exciting, and it could be a massive project that could be really

02:20significant and important for the whole of Dover.

02:23The house is only the tip of the iceberg, with other structures still being under Dover's

02:27streets, with the District Council planning to turn the Roman painted house, Roman bathhouse

02:32and Roman lawn into a leading heritage-based visitor attraction.

02:36They're working with Historic England to look for funding for the future project.

02:40Finn McDermid for CAME TV in Dover.