Note 352 — Chapter VII · (Year of Rome 699.) (Book IV of the “Commentaries.”) INCURSIONS OF THE USIPETES AND THE TENCTERI—FIRST PASSAGE OF THE RHINE—FIRST DESCENT IN BRITAIN—CHASTISEMENT OF THE MORINI AND THE MENAPII.
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The port of Dover extended formerly from the site of the present town, between the cliffs which border the valley of the Dour or of Charlton. (See Plate 17.) Indeed, from the facts furnished by ancient authors, and a geological examination of the ground, it appears certain that once the sea penetrated into the land, and formed a creek which occupied nearly the whole of the valley of Charlton. The words of Cæsar are just justified: “Cujus loci hæc erat natura, atque ita montibus angustis mare continebatur, uti ex locis superioribus in littus telum adjici posset.” (IV. 23.)
The proofs of the above assertion result from several facts related in different notices on the town of Dover. It is there said that in 1784 Sir Thomas Hyde Page caused a shaft to be sunk at a hundred yards from the shore, to ascertain the depth of the basin at a remote period; it proved that the ancient bed of the sea had been formerly thirty English feet below the present level of the high tide. In 1826, in sinking a well at a place called Dolphin Lane, they found, at a depth of twenty-one feet, a bed of mud resembling that of the present port, mixed with the bones of animals and fragments of leaves and roots. Similar detritus have been discovered in several parts of the valley. An ancient chronicler, named Darell, relates that “Wilbred, King of Kent, built in 700 the church of St. Martin, the ruins of which are still visible near the market-place, on the spot where formerly ships cast anchor.”
The town built under the Emperors Adrian and Septimus Severus occupied a part of the port, which had already been covered with sand; yet the sea still entered a considerable distance inland. (See Plate 17.)
It would appear to have been about the year 950 that the old port was entirely blocked up with the maritime and fluvial alluvium which have been increasing till our day, and which at different periods have rendered it necessary to construct the dykes and quays which have given the port its present form.