A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



A page further on contains the following paragraph, which seems to identify 

 the place : ' In a Survey of the Manor of Felixstowe Priory made in 1613 

 we find a Close of Arable land called Great Long-Dole, in which Close are 

 the ruins of Walton Castle.' The close is still known by its ancient name, 

 and its position may be seen on the Ordnance Survey maps. It lies close against 

 the sea, Grose, in his supplement to the Antiquities of England and JVales, 

 pubhshed in 1787, gives a view of the wall in question, which by that time 

 had fallen on the beach. He says : ' Its remains in 1766 when this view was 

 drawn, were only visible at near low water, the sea having gained so con- 

 siderably on this coast as to wash away the cliff on which it stood. A 

 gentleman now living remembers the ruins of the castle to have stood at 

 least fifty yards within the extremity of the cHff.' Thus the only remaining 

 fragment of Roman inclosure had fallen beneath the waves in 1766. The 

 wall unquestionably formed part of a station of the same class as the one by 

 the Waveney, though perhaps not covering quite so large an extent of ground. 

 Kirby speaks of it as standing on a ridge. This was the southern edge of a 

 wide depression, scarcely a valley, which, wide upon the shore, gradually 

 narrowed as it ran westward to the ancient village of Felixstowe. Both slopes 

 of this shallow valley appear to have been used as the cemetery of the station ; 

 a boarded well has been discovered ; and perhaps some few scattered houses, 

 judging from the building material found, may have existed here. On the 

 north side of the valley, where a fall of the cliff occurred in 1853, two skele- 

 tons were uncovered. These had bronze armlets, which were placed with 

 the bones in the museum at Ipswich." 



From a report ^^ in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries (1885) we 

 learn that ' during the progress of works carried on in what is known as the 

 Park, situated a short distance from Felixstowe Church (close to, if not actually 

 part of, the field known as the Great Long-Dole), the men in their search for 

 Coprolites came upon many most interesting relics of the Roman occupation.' 

 Amongst the list of objects turned up occur ' coins of Severus, Gordianus, 

 Gallienus, Victorinus, Constantinus, Arcadius ' &c. Of more consequence 

 than the miscellaneous finds were the cinerary urns found, ' containing bones 

 and ashes and either closed with a cover or with a stone only.' The discovery 

 of these last showed the situation as part of the cemetery. 



From what has preceded it is clear that there was on this spot of the 

 Suffolk coast a Roman station, approximating in size and details of construc- 

 tion to those noted for the defence of the east coast. It occurs at a most 

 important point for the protection of this coast, and its omission would have 

 caused a dangerous gap in the line of defence. On the cliff 100 ft. above the 

 sea it commanded a full view of both the Stour and the Orwell and of the 

 Deben, the harbour at whose mouth, called Bawdsey Haven, scarcely a mile 

 away, would have held the auxiliary ships of the fleet. It seems strange that 

 the site should be so little known by antiquaries, perhaps owing to its 

 disappearance early in the i8th century and the very little interest shown by 

 them in the later Roman fortresses in comparison with those which are more 

 obvious and earlier. 



•' For an account of other views representing the ruins of the Roman station called Walton Castle see 

 Topographical Index under Felixstowe. 



" Proc. Soc. Jnlif. Land. (Ser. 2), 1885, xi, 12, 14. 



290 



