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NGRef: TQ6404 OSMap: LR199 Type: Saxon Shore Fort |
 Plan of the Saxon Shore Fort of Anderitum (Pevensey), oriented with north at the top. As can be seen, the southern part of the fort has been eroded by tidal action, and other parts of the massive wall have become damaged by slippage. [adapted from Collingwood] |
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Probable Road: NNW (30) to Holtye (Sussex) Possible road: W (24) to Hassocks (West Sussex) Possible Coastal Road: W (24) to NOVVS PORTVS? (nr. Brighton and Hove, Sussex) | |
The name of the Roman station at Pevensey is first mentioned in the Notitia Dignitatum of the late-4th/early-5th centuries where it appears as Anderide, between the entries for Rutupiae (Richborough, Kent) and Portus Ardaoni (Portchester, Hampshire). The Pevensey fort is last mentioned in the Ravenna Cosmology of the seventh century, in which the name is recorded as Anderelio Nuba (R&C#68), between the duplicated entry for Iacio Dulma (Towcester, Northamptonshire) and the unknown station Mutuantonis located somewhere in south-east England.
Although there are no inscriptions on stone recorded in Volume I of the R.I.B., many roofing tiles have been unearthed within the Pevensey defenses which have been stamped on the back with one of the oldest Roman texts in Britain (vide infra). They likely record the activities of the last known Roman governor to campaign in Britain, Stilicho the Vandal, who has also been connected with the series of signal stations along the north-eastern coast between Huntcliff in Cleveland and Filey in North Yorkshire. This man was the most favoured general of the emperor Honorius, the younger son of Theodosius, who ruled the Western Empire from his citadel at Ravenna between AD395 and 423 (vide supra).
| HON AVG ANDRIA |
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| "[Property of] the emperor Honorius, from Anderida" (Burn 231; RIB II; stamped tiles) |
The only record of any of the fort's garrison units is contained in the Notitia Dignitatum mentioned above, where, included among the forces "at the disposal of the Right Honourable Count of the Saxon shore in Britain" there is the entry for Pevensey shown below.
| Praepositus numeri Abulcorum, Anderidos |
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| "The commander of the Company of Abulci¹ at Anderida" |
| (Notitia Dignitatum xxviii.20; 4th/5th C.) |
"Pevensey (Fig. 12b) is oval in shape, with an area of over 8 acres. Its walls are 12 feet thick and stand 28 feet high; they are built on a framework of timber sleepers embedded in the surface of a chalk and stone foundation, and have U-shaped bastions and tile bonding-courses. The gates, flanked by towers, are 10 feet wide, and there is a postern curved in such a way that a person entering cannot see into the fort." (Collingwood, p.53)
There is a villa at Eastbourne (TV6198), four miles to the south-west along the coast. The Roman pottery kiln at Arlington (TQ5207), lies on the line of the suspected road to the minor settlement at Hassocks, and a substantial Roman building has been found at Newhaven (TQ4401) along the route of the possible coastal road to Brighton and Noviomagus (Chichester).
