by the Romans, since the termination, cester, from the Latin castrum, a camp or fort, is deemed always to imply such a fact with regard to any locality thus distinguished. And if it was a stationary Roman garrison, which is proved by the record of the troops maintained there, we may be sure it possessed marks of Roman occupation, in the existence there of walls composed with stone and lime. We should likewise advert to the chronicler's observation, that Andredesceaster was "a strongly fortified city—urbem munitissimam," which, indeed, is to be gathered from the obstinate resistance of the inhabitants to their Saxon assailants. And lastly, that the city was extensive is a conclusion equally clear from the statement of the numbers, which collected for the defence, of whom it may be noted, that the historian expressly styles them "citizens," as if they consisted mainly of parties fighting for their own families and homes, not simply of men assembled from the surrounding country to repel a foreign enemy. Wherefore, though positive information fails us, we perceive there is ground for believing, that Andredesceaster, was a large and regularly constructed Roman fortress; consequently, that the spot where it stood is quite as likely to contain at the present day some signs of Roman domination, as any of those numerous places in this kingdom, where that such traces remain is uncontested.
The idea that Newenden possesses the site we are inquiring after, appears to have originated with Camden, who writes thus: "Newenden, which, I am almost persuaded, was the haven so long sought for, called by the Notitia Anderida, by the Britons Caer Andred, and by the Saxons Andredeceaster: first, because the inhabitants affirm it to have been a town and harbour of very great antiquity; next, from its situation by the wood Andredswald, to which it gave the name; and lastly, because the Saxons seem to have called it Brittenden, that is, 'a valley of the Britons;' from whence Selbrittenden is the name of the whole hundred adjoining." After an account of the destruction of the place, "as Huntingdon tells us," he adds, that for many ages after only ruins were visible, "till under Edward I the Friars Carmelites had a little monastery built here, at the charge of Thomas Albuger, knight; upon which a town presently sprung up, and, with respect to the old one that had been demolished, began to be
