II. REMAINS OF ROMAN WORKS.
Emerging from the region of tradition, we may now climb Dover Castle Hill to seek what may be still remaining of the actual towers, mounds, and walls raised by the Romans. In entering on this quest, we are following in the footsteps of lovers of the old and venerable who have climbed this hill century after century. The earliest antiquarians have unhesitatingly regarded the ancient weather-beaten tower, known as the Pharos, standing some forty feet high, near the western end of the Church, as a Roman building. This ancient monument is, probably, one of the earliest structures raised by the Romans in this island.
The supposition is that when the head of the British insurrection was broken at Dover, Aulus Plautius, who did not proceed inland with Vespasian and Titus, remained here and fortified the Castle Hill with towers and earthworks. To raise stone buildings, their ships had to bring materials across the Channel, and to assist the navigators, they first built the lighthouse known as the Pharos. Having no stone at hand, they constructed the Pharos with blocks of tufa dug up in the valley of the Dour, interlocking the blocks with peculiarly manufactured tiles made on the spot from local clay. So constructed, the tower was strong enough to serve as a lighthouse. In the thirteenth century it was heightened, and strengthened with a stone casing, the casing being renewed in the Fifteenth Century, but the exposure to weather during five centuries in some parts entirely destroyed the outer covering rendering work of preservation necessary, which was carried out under the order of Earl Beauchamp by the Office of Works in 19 13, when the architect, Mr. Frank Baines, reported that although the fifteenth century casing had, in parts perished, the original Roman core was perfectly sound.
Another structure which is believed to be Roman is the central tower of the Church. Writers who have had no hesitation in ascribing the Church tower to the Romans, have been puzzled by the fact that its materials are so utterly different from those of the Pharos; but the simple explanation seems to be that the Pharos had to be built of materials found in the locality, while the Church tower, which originally stood isolated as a watch-tower, was constructed a little later of strong masonry, some of the stones being caen and oolite brought from France, and others from the Kentish coast westward.
Two hundred and fifty years ago William Somner journeyed from Canterbury to view this Castle, when he was gathering materials for his treatise on " Roman Ports and Forts in Kent." The learned antiquarian deeply versed in British, Saxon, Norman and Early English lore, after surveying the Saxon and Norman works, remarked: " Here we have a castle, and such a castle too, as was of old called, at home and abroad, the lock and key, the bar and sparr of all England, yet I cannot believe the present Castle to be either of Julius Ccesar's building, whose stay in Britain was too short for so vast an undertaking, or to be that wherein the Company of the Tungricans was said to lie ; yet I doubt not but that such a Company lay here in garrison, and that the place was then fortified, and had within it a specula, or watch-tower." Then the old writer looked about him, and giving the " go-by," as he quaintly expressed it, to the Saxon and Norman towers, he wrote: "I rather chuse to think that which at present is, and for many years past has been the Church or Chapel to the Castle, either to have risen out of the Roman fortress, or that the square tower in the middle hereof, between the nave and the chancel, fitted with holes, on all parts for speculation, to have been the very Roman specula, or watch-tower." Further evidence that the square tower in the centre of the Church was in reality the original Roman specula was discovered by the Rev. John Puckle when the Castle Church was restored in 1 86 1. He found that that tower, which for many centuries — probably from the time of Lucius — has had four arches opening into the chancel, nave and transepts, has a continuous foundation wall carried across under each of the arched spaces, indicating that the openings were pierced after the building of the tower; yet the tiles and workmanship in the arches suggest that the adaptation of the tower to a Church was done by masons, who had been instructed by Roman builders.
No building in Britain can vie with this Dover Castle Church for antiquarian interest, for the central tower evidently dates from the first years of effective Roman occupation in the days of Claudius Coesar, and its conversion into the central tower of a Christian Church probably dates from A.D. i6o — earlier than any other existing church fabric in Britain. The Castle Church has for centuries been dedicated to Saint Mary ; but it is believed that, originally, it was called Christ Church, and that belief seems to have originated from the statement that King Lucius built the Church on the Castle Hill "for the honour of Christ."