This site comprises the remains of Roman timber piers and a revetted waterfront on the River Itchen near Bitterne (Clausentum), the small fortified Roman port on a peninsula in the Itchen estuary on the eastern side of modern Southampton. The structures relate to the riverside infrastructure of Clausentum, which was active from the later 1st century AD through the 4th century, with particularly strong evidence for use as a transhipment point in the late Roman period when it was enclosed by a defensive wall.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The piers and revetment underline Clausentum's role as a coastal/estuarine port handling goods moving between cross-Channel shipping and inland sites such as Winchester (Venta Belgarum), to which the Itchen provided a navigable route. The site is one of relatively few places in Roman Britain where waterfront timber infrastructure survives in waterlogged conditions, comparable on a smaller scale to the London and Southwark waterfronts.
Investigations at Bitterne since the 19th century, and more systematically in the mid-20th century (notably M. Aylwin Cotton's work) and in subsequent developer-led interventions, have recorded timber piling and revetment lines along the Itchen foreshore, alongside the masonry defensive wall and internal buildings on the peninsula. Detailed published information on the piers specifically is limited, and precise dating of the
This site comprises the remains of Roman timber piers and a revetted waterfront on the River Itchen near Bitterne (Clausentum), the small fortified Roman port on a peninsula in the Itchen estuary on the eastern side of modern Southampton. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a site site from the Roman period in Britain.
Roman piers and revetment in the River Itchen is classified as a Roman site — a civilian 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 Bitterne (Clausentum) Roman station (0.4 km), Bitterne (1 km), Eastern aqueduct and the water catchment area of a western aqueduct, at Netley Abbey (4.3 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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