Bibliography - Prof. John Robert Lawrence Allen F.R.S., F.S.A.
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The Rumenesea Wall and the early settled landscape of Romney Marsh (Kent), by J. R. L. Allen, published 1999 in Landscape History, the journal of the Society for Landscape Studies (vol. 21, issue 1, article, pp.5-18)   View Online

The Rumenesea Wall, a seabank of early medieval date, has been traced for almost 9 kilometres between Snargate and the coastal barrier at New Romney as a consistent rise in ground level toward the south-west averaging about 0.5 metres. It probably is rooted in the Wealden scarp at Appeldorn, but between there and Snargate is today subsumed within the structure of the younger Rhee Wall. The Rumenesea Wall lies north-east of the Rhee Wall and on the far side of the Rumenesea, a waterway recorded from early times with the characteristics, when it became fixed in the landscape, of a modest tidal inlet carrying some freshwater. Together with complementary earthworks identified in the north of Romney Marsh, and the coastal barrier, the Rumenesea Wall provided for the enclosure and defence against the sea of most of Romney Marsh proper. Its construction transformed the coastal wetlands, dividing the area into a north-eastern part, where permanent settlement was assured, from a south-western portion which largely remained for a long period under tidal influence and could not be exploited in this way without further embanking. After the Roman embanking of large parts of the Severn Estuary Levels, the Rumenesea Wall is perhaps the earliest seabank of any substantial length to be constructed on a British coastal lowland. The landscape changes its construction brought about illustrate a social and economic movement for which there is evidence on much of the north-west European littoral.

Early Roman stone tesserae from Southwick villa, West Sussex, by J. R. L. Allen and Giles Standing, published 2012 in Sussex Archæological Collections (vol. 150, article, pp.95-107) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 18615] & The Keep [LIB/500368] & S.A.S. library   View Online

Lavishly planned, perhaps in imitation of Fishbourne palace at Chichester nearby to the west, the early Flavian villa at Southwick stands on the coastal plain of the South Downs and the Channel seaboard. It has experienced a complicated and varied sequence of investigations over the last 200 years, but nothing now remains above ground. Losses, dispersals and disposals have significantly reduced the number of border/corridor and mosaic tesserae recovered over the years. Those that remain are of ceramic, soft and hard chalk and, on scientific examination, in this paper, Kimmeridgian dolomitic cement stone. They were probably used to make bichrome ('black' and white), geometric mosaics in the reception rooms and bath suites of the villa. Except for the lack of red and yellow burnt Kimmeridgian shales, the assemblage of tesserae is similar in character to those employed for early mosaics (1st century-early 2nd century AD) across southern Britain as a whole, from Exeter and Caerleon in the west to Silchester, London, Fishbourne and Eccles in the east. All of the sites benefited from a well-organised mosaic industry that exploited the varied geological resources of the Poole-Purbeck region of Dorset. This piece places Southwick villa within this context for the first time.