"Portchester Castle near Portsmouth - Roman/medieval" Topic

I was at Portchester Castle last week and have put up 23 photos here:

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All are thumbnails and all open up much larger when double-clicked.

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Portchester Castle in Hampshire is a castle of many periods and many uses. It has been a Roman fort, a Saxon settlement, a powerful medieval castle, a priory, a place of conspiracy and a prisoner of war camp.

Portchester started as the Roman ‘Saxon Shore' fort of Portus Adurni in about the 3rd century A.D. The present square plan of outer walls are Roman and are well preserved, with medieval improvements. These are still some of the best Roman walls in Britain. Wiki claims they are the best preserved Roman walls north of the Alps.

The term ‘Saxon Shore' has to be used with caution as, while these forts may have served in the later defence of Britain against European tribes such as the Saxons, most evidence suggests they were first built to defend against other Romans during a period of rival Roman emperors. Indeed Portchester is so far to the south as to have been useless against Saxons, Angles or Jutes invading from Denmark or Holland but well placed against invaders from Roman-held France/Gaul. Like all these forts it was a base for the Roman navy as much as their army.

Post-Roman there is evidence and records of a Saxon settlement or burgh within the Roman walls but the coming of the Normans in 1066 meant that the new invaders recognised the value of the site as a large and almost ready-made base for the Norman Conquest. As at Pevensey, in Sussex, the Roman walls were supplemented by a Norman ‘inner bailey' and then a tall keep. The keep at Portchester is square and still well preserved but is the least disability friendly of a large and generally flat site.

The pious Normans also allowed the Augustinians to build a priory in one corner of the site, where the present church is, while high on the walls there are nine ‘garderobe' or toilet chutes to allow the monks to relieve themselves straight into the harbour, which then came up to the Roman walls on that side.

Barry

Nice my wife works in a school five minutes down the road from Portchester castle and it's a frequent school trip location during the children's annual castles history project. Been there a few times myself. Portsmouth and it's environs has a lot of great places to visit for people interested in military history.

I wouldn't say Portchester castle was to far south to protect against Saxons and Jutes. The Isle of Wight and the New forest where early Jutish kingdoms and the kingdom of Wessex most likely started in South Hampshire around Southampton water (though curiously early Wessex kings had Brythonic names)

@Prince Rupert:
It's not on the direct route from Zeebrugge to Harwich.
I live very near the Brancaster fort at the other end of the Saxon Shore forts line. While they had an application against any later invader, coin dating and other material suggests construction was at a time of Roman v Roman action rather than Roman v Barbarians.

Barry

Totally agree the dates of their construction certainly tally with Roman upheaval. I just wouldn't agree that they would be of no use against Germanic raiders because they were to far south. The south coast from Kent to Dorset all became Germanic kingdoms (Jute or Saxon) at the beginning of the medieval period.

One theory I've read was the term Saxon shore was becuase the forts where maned by Germanic Foederati rather than built to keep Saxons out.

@Prince Rupert:
Agree with your second paragraph re: Foederati.

Barry

What is the earliest appearance of the phrase 'Saxon Shore'- did it feature in Latin texts and from what date?

I believe the title count of the Saxon shore (comes littoris Saxonici per Britanniam) appears in the Notitia Dignitatum in the 5th century but the title is dated to the mid 4th century.

I believe there were forts on both sides of the channel and were mainly to keep raiding parties out of raiding up the Rivers.

Portchester was also the site of a massacre of Roman British force by Saxons. It was recorded in the Saxon chronicles.

Portchester and Exeter were the exit ports for the large population Migration to Brittany.

Per Prince Rupert I read a suggestion that it was called the Saxon Shore because it was garrisoned by Saxons.

Wasn't Pevensey the site of the massacre?

In my days as a junior archaeologist, there was interest in the recovery from late Roman cemeteries of brooches and belt fittings that might have suggested the presence of 'Germanic' foederati or similar in southern Britain but the amount of finds, in sufficient concentrations, was not enough to develop the hypothesis that entire garrisons of such troops might have been present.

That impression could be way out of date now.

Bigredbat you are correct on Pevensey

I have now added a further 15 photographs to the earlier link:

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showing my earlier visit to Portchester Castle for a 15th century 'Wars of the Roses' event in the middle 1990s.

Barry

Interesting Thread!
How 'Theory' can change/evolve in 40 years! Keep it up!

I hop that it's Ok to post on your thread. I know Porchester Castle well as I used to live nearby in Stubbington. I was fascinated to find that it had connections to the Napoleonic wars in the Caribbean. The following article gives some information:

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I used to live in Stubbington in the 1960s and visited Portchester often.