Portus Dubris (Dover) was the principal cross-Channel harbour of Roman Britain and the headquarters of the Classis Britannica, the British provincial fleet. A succession of forts occupied the site: an early timber-phase fort begun c. AD 117 but apparently never completed, followed by the main stone-built Classis Britannica fort (c. AD 130–210, occupying roughly 1 hectare), and later a substantial Saxon Shore fort of the late 3rd century built partly over the earlier installations.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
As the shortest crossing to Gaul (to Gesoriacum/Boulogne), Dubris was the strategic and logistical hinge of Britain's connection with the Continent, serving both as a naval base and as the British terminus of Watling Street. Its twin Roman lighthouses (pharoi) flanking the harbour — one of which survives within Dover Castle — are unique upstanding monuments in Britain.
Extensive rescue excavations in the 1970s by Brian Philp revealed the Classis Britannica fort with its tile-stamped CL BR roof tiles, granaries, principia, and adjacent extramural buildings including the famous "Painted House" — a 2nd-century mansio with the most extensive in-situ Roman wall paintings north of the Alps. Subsequent work has clarified the Saxon Shore fort's plan and traced the silted Roman harbour beneath the modern town
Portus Dubris (Dover) was the principal cross-Channel harbour of Roman Britain and the headquarters of the Classis Britannica, the British provincial fleet. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a fort site from the Roman period in Britain.
Portus Dubris is classified as a Roman fort — a military site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including South-western section of the Roman Fort of the Classis Britannica, near Albany Place (0.3 km), The Bath House, N of Market Street (0.4 km), Fortifications, Roman lighthouse and medieval chapel on Western Heights (0.5 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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