SoA Forum

History => Ancient and Medieval History => Topic started by: Nick Harbud on Aug 01, 2026, 10:51 AM

Title: Pass The Port
Post by: Nick Harbud on Aug 01, 2026, 10:51 AM
Turn a spade in most back gardens and all one finds is collection of builders' rubble...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3r085dwv8vo (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3r085dwv8vo)
Title: Re: Pass The Port
Post by: Imperial Dave on Aug 01, 2026, 11:32 AM
I was hoping for the drink...
Title: Re: Pass The Port
Post by: Erpingham on Aug 01, 2026, 01:24 PM
Quote from: Imperial Dave on Aug 01, 2026, 11:32 AMI was hoping for the drink...

I am reminded of an incident in German class at school.  We had to translate something that involved a ship and a port. One pupil was called to the front. He had looked up the word port in a dictionary and translated it Portwein (the drink). He got a detention for stupidity. Bit harsh, I thought.
Title: Re: Pass The Port
Post by: Jim Webster on Aug 01, 2026, 02:19 PM
Quote from: Nick Harbud on Aug 01, 2026, 10:51 AMTurn a spade in most back gardens and all one finds is collection of builders' rubble...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3r085dwv8vo (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3r085dwv8vo)

Sometimes the builder's rubble is 2000 years old  8)
Title: Re: Pass The Port
Post by: Denis Grey on Aug 01, 2026, 02:46 PM
Quote from: Jim Webster on Aug 01, 2026, 02:19 PM
Quote from: Nick Harbud on Aug 01, 2026, 10:51 AMTurn a spade in most back gardens and all one finds is collection of builders' rubble...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3r085dwv8vo (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3r085dwv8vo)

Sometimes the builder's rubble is 2000 years old  8)

My father worked for a small building company.  While digging out the foundations of an Elizabethan bakery in Rochester in the late 1960s, he came across numerous shards of 1st and 2nd century Samian ware.  (There was nothing that could be reassembled into a complete item, so presumably he had hit a Roman rubbish tip.) 

Not quite 2000 year old builder's rubble, but pretty close.
Title: Re: Pass The Port
Post by: DBS on Aug 01, 2026, 04:35 PM
As a fourteen year old several decades ago, I spent my summer holiday on the excavation of the Roman villa at Beddington.  A tad unusual as we were having to dig through the... remains... of a Victorian sewage farm.  The Victorians had found and correctly identified the villa when work started on the sewage farm, and they duly noted it and mapped approximate area, then carried on laying down the concrete for the settling tanks.  A modern sewage farm had been built next door in the 1950s, but it took thirty odd years for the Victorian... sediment shall we say... to be declared just about safe to dig through.  Still had to be on the watch for any signs of Weil's Disease, and no snacking whilst one dug.
Title: Re: Pass The Port
Post by: Nick Harbud on Aug 02, 2026, 07:55 AM
Some people manage to find the most desirable occupations...

 ::)