Dubris Dubris or Portus Dubris was a port in Roman Britain on the site of present day Dover , Kent , England . As the closest point to continental Europe and the site of the estuary of the Dour , the site chosen for Dover was ideal for a cross - channel port . The Dour is now covered over for much of its course through the town . In the Roman era , it grew into an important military , mercantile and cross - channel harbour and - with Rutupiae - one of the two starting points of the road later known as Watling Street . It was fortified and garrisoned initially by the Classis Britannica , and later by troops based in a Saxon Shore Fort . Caesar . At the start of his first attempt to conquer Britain in 55BC Julius Caesar initially tried to land at Dubris , whose natural harbour had presumably been identified by Volusenus as a suitable landing place . However , when he came in sight of shore , the massed forces of the Britons gathered on the overlooking hills and cliffs dissuaded him from landing there , since the cliffs were " so close to the shore that javelins could be thrown down from " them onto anyone landing there . After waiting there at anchor " until the ninth hour " ( about 3pm ) waiting for his supply ships from the second port to come up and meanwhile convening a council of war , he ordered his subordinates to act on their own initiative and then sailed the fleet about seven miles along the coast to an open beach . Classis Britannica fort . The Roman fleet in British waters , the " Classis Britannica " ' s main purpose was protecting the Gaul - to - Britain routes and supporting the land army in Britannia , not defending the British Isles from invasion . For this reason its main fort was in " Portus Itius " ( Boulogne - sur - Mer ) , not Dover . However , it did have other , smaller bases in Britannia itself , at " Rutupiae " and Dubris . Lighthouses . Two lighthouses , each called the Pharos , were built soon after the conquest . Proposals of their date range from 50 ( only seven years after the invasion of 43 ) , 80 or ( since the building includes tiles identical to the mansio in the town built at that date ) c . 138 , though the general consensus is for a 1st - century AD date . They were sited on the two heights ( Eastern Heights and Western Heights ) and modelled on the one built for Caligula ' s aborted invasion at Boulogne . The one on the Eastern Heights still stands in the grounds of Dover Castle to 80 feet ( 24 m ) high close to its original height , and has been adapted for use as the bell tower of the adjacent castle church of St Mary de Castro . What little remains of the western lighthouse is called the Bredenstone or the Devil ' s Drop of Mortar after the putative nearby lost village of Braddon , within Drop Redoubt on Dover Western Heights - it was covered in the 18th century building works but then rediscovered in fresh works in the 1860s , and was the traditional site of the investiture of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports . Peak . At its peak , Dubris was a major trading centre , taking over from Rutupiae as the main Roman cross - Channel port . With Rutupiae , it was one of the starting points for Watling Street , the Roman road to Canterbury and , ultimately , London . Roman Painted House . During the construction of the new A256 / York Street bypass in the 1970s Roman remains were discovered and an eight - week excavation followed . The archaeologists discovered a Roman Painted House is a Roman mansio , a hostel for government officials , which was built in c . 200 . It was discovered in 1970 by the Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit and , as it houses some of the finest example of Roman murals in Britain ( over . of painted plaster , the most extensive ever found north of the Alps ) , it has been called " Britain ' s Buried Pompeii " . Above a lower dado , of red or green , an architectural scheme of multi - coloured panels framed by fluted columns is still visible . The columns sit on projecting bases above a stage , producing a clear 3 - D effect . Parts of 28 panels survive , each with a motif relating to Bacchus , the Roman God of wine . This Bacchic link , and the building ' s proximity to the baths , port and fort , has been said by some to suggest that the Painted House was once a brothel . However , this is entirely circumstantial evidence ( frescos in brothels tended to be more explicit , as in those at Pompeii , and Bacchic motifs are very commonly found in simply domestic areas ) and so most academics believe the rooms are too small to have supported this line of work and instead support its designation as a mansio . Other features of the Painted House include the Dover Gems , a medieval cut in the floor allowing the hypocaust system to be viewed and a medieval skeleton found in the nearby St Martin - le - Grand church , nicknamed " Fred " by the volunteers who keep the museum running . Saxon Shore Fort . Dubris ' s mansio was demolished in 270 for the construction of a Saxon Shore Fort . This demolition preserved the mansio and its wall - paintings better than usual , since the foots of the walls were contained in the fort ' s rampart . Visible remains . A small amount of the fort remains is now visible , on request , at Dover Library and Discovery Centre ( the former White Cliffs Experience ) , and a public house off Market Square is built on and named after the Roman Quay . The most extensive and publicly accessible remains are at the Roman Painted House , where parts of the mansio , Saxon Shore Fort and Classis Britannica fort are all visible . 1980s excavations . The town council had plans to build a car park on the site , when the KARU team , led by Brian Philp , began to find Roman remains . After a convoluted battle with the council and the builders , the excavation was allowed to continue and a cover - building was built on the site by KARU while the carpark was built elsewhere , with the museum being completed before the car park . It has since received thousands of visitors , including the Queen Mother , who signed a specially - presented guestbook . Philp continues to curate , giving talks to schoolchildren , tourists and academics alike . Other artefacts including an extremely important glass vessel are kept on the site , attracting academic study in recent years . This cover - building still stands over these remains . It has changed little since then and is now under threat from lack of funding . Many in the local area have commented that the site would have been better presented had it been integrated with the rest of the site , which was instead largely reburied under the new bypass , which was specially inclined to protect the remains , and White Cliffs Experience . All this has been widely criticised by , among others , Philp himself , who has said :