Canterbury has a history extending over 2000 years. In addition to the many ancient monuments visible today much of that history remains beneath the modern streets. However the city is not a museum: it is a modern and thriving community. New developments and building projects are needed to continue Canterbury's story into its third millennium.

Land Securities and the Canterbury Archaeological Trust have worked in partnership for over ten years to seek the right balance between the conservation of the past and investment in the future. Archaeologists, engineers and architects have worked together to design new developments that damage the buried historical remains as little as possible. Where damage has been unavoidable however Land Securities has funded detailed scientific excavation by the Canterbury Archaeological Trust.

Aerial view of the Whitefriars area

Longmarket
excavation poster

Over the past decade, important discoveries about the city's Roman and medieval history have been made as part of the developments at the longmarket and St George's Clocktower.

The Whitefriars development is one of the largest undertaken within the city walls and once again archaeologists from the Canterbury Archaeological Trust are working closely with Land Securities to explore our hidden past before a new chapter in the city's story is begun.

Bath suite of a Roman town-house with
a Roman street in the foreground. Beneath Marlowe Arcade

Collapsed pilae stacks, public baths, beneath 20 St Margaret's Street

Of all the Roman towns of Britain, Canterbury has produced some of the most compelling evidence for continuous occupation into the 'Dark Ages'.

Early Anglo-Saxon levels investigated at Canterbury have produced one of the largest collections of domestic buildings of the period in the country. A group of these early buildings was found within the Whitefriars area during excavation in 1960. Although it is clear that the Roman town was in decay and that the road system was no longer in use, it is equally clear that a new and growing population was in occupation well before the arrival of St Augustine in AD 597.

The Canterbury Whitefriars excavations will yield evidence to shed new and important light on Anglo-Saxon Canterbury and particularly for the period when Kent was the foremost and most cosmopolitan of the Early English kingdoms.

Reconstruction of medieval Canterbury c. 1200. © Canterbury Museums (click on image for larger version)

By the Norman conquest most of the network of streets presently within the walls had been established. In the Whitefriars area however, war-time bombing and post-war development has destroyed the original arrangement of streets. Amajor part of our work at Canterbury Whitefriars will be to rediscover those medieval lanes, shops, workshops and gardens.

Foundations of the dormitory of St Gregory's Priory, Northgate

Locally made medieval ballaster jugs from
a well in Butchery Lane

After the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538, Canterbury Whitefriars was converted for use as an important residence and remained in that use for 250 years. Early maps of Canterbury in 1540 and 1640 show the area to have been dominated by the former precinct, with domestic properties filling most of the road frontages across the area, many with extensive gardens.

Developments in the eighteenth and nineteenth century are indicated in a succession of maps culminating with the publication of the first edition Ordnance Survey for 1874. in 1878 the house and extensive grounds were purchsed for use as the Simon Langton School for Boys and Girls.

The uppermost archaeological deposits at Canterbury Whitefriars will contain evidence for properties destroyed by bombing in 1942. Our Investigations will commence at present street level and will continue through a succession of deposits laid down over 2000 years.

Mid eighteenth-century pottery from
North Lane