The Roman site of Richbough, now known as Richborough Castle, is situated about a mile and a half north of Sandwich in East Kent. Richborough was an important town and port throughout the four centuries of Roman rule in Britain and played a major strategic role in the initial conquest in AD 43.

Caesar's conquest of gaul had brought Roman civilisation to the threshold of southern England and by the first century AD political contacts between the Empire northwards during the first century AD, Gaius Caligula had considered an invasion. However increasing internal hostilities between the southern tribes led to an appeal by the king of the Atrebates to Rome for help against the Catuvellauni. This presented the Emperor Claudius with the opportunity for invasion and conquest, and in AD 43 the Roman army under the command of Aulus Plautius landed at Richborough and established a military supply base there.

During the Roman period the coastline of Kent was very different from today. The isle of Thanet by the Wantsum Channel - a strait on average two miles wide. At sometime in prehistory the shingle spit of Stonar Neach had developed across the eastern entrance of this strait giving protection to a small island to the west of the spit, which was linked to the mainland by a causeway. It was on this island that the Roman port of Richborough, known as Rutupiae, was established.

The massive fortified walls you see today are the remains of a stone fort they built around AD275 to guard against a Germanic attack.