265
On Pevensey Castle, and the recent excavations there.
By Mark Antony Lower, M.A., F.S.A.
(with a plan of the castle and discoveries,
by William Figg, F.S.A.)
Partly read at the quarterly meeting at Lewes, October 5, 1852.
Among the pleasurable modern uses of this venerable relic of other times, there is one event which has peculiar interest for the originators of the Sussex Archæological Society:—its inauguration, under the happiest auspices, within the walls of this, the oldest structure remaining in the county, on the 9th of July, 1846. It is by no means my object in the present paper to enter upon the history of Pevensey. I have already done so in an essay which was read on the occasion above referred to, and which has subsequently been printed as a brochure, under the title of 'Chronicles of Pevensey.'[1] Fortunately, too, it will not be necessary for me to advance any arguments in proof of the identity of this fortress with the Romano-British city of Anderida—a fact amply proved in a paper in this volume by the Rev. Arthur Hussey. This long and needlessly vexed question has, I think, received its determination; for of all the Roman forts on the line of south-eastern coast, called the Saxon Shore (Littus Saxonicum), only Anderida remained to seek, while at the same time the important and indubitably Roman structure known as Pevensey remained the only one on that coast that was unappropriated to any ancient name. Mr. Hussey has been successful in reuniting the designation and the locality, and no future divorcement of the two can reasonably be apprehended. It will be necessary, however, for the better understanding of
- ↑ Lewes, 1846. 12mo, pp. 56.
