Site of Roman red hill, Mill Bay, Dovercourt (EHER 7457)

In 1958 work on the sea defences destroyed most of a red hill outside the sea wall. Although only a small portion of the site survives, the rest being cut away by the delphs and marsh ditches outside the wall, it seems to have been a small mound c10m diameter, 0.3m high. There is a considerable amount of badly fragmented friable briquetage and a little Roman pottery.

In 1958 work on the sea defences destroyed most of a red hill outside the sea wall (finds with P. Barford). This site is not noted in RH Farrands' 1959 survey of the red hills of the north-east extreme of the Essex coast. It is now number 176 in the numbering system begun by Rodwell in 1979. Although only a small portion of the site survives, the rest being cut away by the delphs and marsh ditches outside the wall, it seems to have been a small mound around 10m diameter, 0.3m high. There is a considerable amount of badly fragmented friable briquetage and a little Roman pottery. The latter includes one body sherd of `Early Roman' greyware as at Little Oakley. The briquetage fabric is not like that of the Little Oakley or Beaumont red hills, being softer and with much more very fine sand but much less and finer vegetable temper. Most of the fragments were undiagnostic or had flat surfaces. One firebar fragment is of the same fabric. <1>