20 



'free fishers and dredgers/ who, from father to son, 

 have carried on the business of an oyster fishery during, it 

 is probable, a period of at least two thousand years. It 

 was about A.u. 80 that Julius Agricola 

 first exported oysters from the neigh- 

 bourhood of the Reculvers to Rome, 

 and for the ancestors of the Whitstable free dredgers Rome 

 was, during about three centuries, their Billingsgate." 



Julius Agricola, 

 A.D. 80. 



Reculvers. 



It might be the neighbourhood above indi- 

 cated was Whitstable, being only a few miles 

 to the westward of Reculvers, which, it will be remembered, 

 still shows distinct evidences of the Roman occupation. 

 Regulbium the Romans called it, and Reculver it is still 

 called by some people, or Reculvers, in the plural, which 

 has been adopted in recent years, in reference apparently 

 to the twin towers of the ruined church there, now 

 preserved as an important landmark to vessels going up 

 and down channel. We know, however, that formerly 



A vestige of the River Wantsume. 



