Silchester Roman Town

Silchester Roman Town
Name	Silchester Roman Town
Native name	Calleva Atrebatum
Caption	Remains of the town walls and gate at Silchester
Settlement type	Roman town
Coordinates	51.3100°N 1.0000°W
Country	England
Region	South East England
County	Berkshire
District	Wokingham District
Founded	1st century AD
Abandoned	c. 7th–8th century

Silchester Roman Town is the site of the Roman town of Calleva Atrebatum, situated near the modern village of Silchester in Berkshire, England. It was the civitas capital of the Atrebates and an important junction on Roman roads linking London, Bath, St Albans and Winchester. The site is notable for its unusually well-preserved defensive circuit, street plan and substantial archaeological record unearthed by major excavations in the 19th and 20th centuries.

History

Calleva Atrebatum emerged in the late Iron Age as a major settlement of the Atrebates tribe and was integrated into the Roman provincial system after the Claudius invasion of Britannia in AD 43. Roman urbanisation introduced a grid plan aligned with the road network connecting to Londinium, Aquae Sulis, Venta Belgarum and Glevum. Throughout the 1st and 2nd centuries Calleva flourished as an administrative and market centre under imperial provinces and reflected influences from Roman Britain elites, local Atrebates aristocracy and itinerant traders from across the Roman Empire. In the 3rd century the town saw rebuilding programmes including a stone wall similar in sequence to other fortified towns such as Verulamium and Bath (Roman); imperial fiscal pressures during the Crisis of the Third Century affected municipal construction and defence. The 4th century maintained Calleva as an urban node within the Diocese of Magna Germania-era administration and British late Roman networks linked to Ravenna and western provincial capitals. After the Roman withdrawal, the town declined during the Anglo-Saxon migrations associated with groups such as the Saxons, Angles and Jutes, while nearby nucleation at Reading and Winchester rose; literary sources like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and placename studies inform debates on its post-Roman fate.

Archaeology and Excavations

Systematic investigation began with antiquarian interest from figures around the 18th century and matured with the 19th-century excavations led by the Society of Antiquaries of London and later by archaeologists such as John Clayton and Edward Conder. Major 20th-century campaigns were conducted by the Society of Antiquaries, the Geophysical Survey Group, and university teams from University College London, the British Museum, the University of Reading, and Oxford University. Excavations revealed timber and stone phases, tessellated floors, hypocaust systems, painted plaster, and imported ceramics including samian ware linked to workshops in Lezoux and Central Gaul. Notable archaeologists including Aileen Fox, Philip Barker, and Margaret Guido contributed stratigraphic interpretation; recent fieldwork applies methods from aerial photography, LiDAR, ground-penetrating radar and archaeobotany. Finds curation involves institutions such as the Reading Museum, the British Museum, and the Museum of London Archaeology Service which store coins, amphorae, and inscriptions connecting Calleva to networks evidenced at Londinium, Glevum, Deva Victrix, and Portus. Conservation efforts have coordinated with agencies including Historic England and the National Trust.

Urban Layout and Architecture

The town’s rectilinear street grid, orthogonal blocks and enclosed forum-like spaces reflect Roman planning traditions observable at provincial centres like Arelate and Lugdunum. The defensive circuit is a continuous stone wall with bastions and four principal gates aligned with roads to Londinium, Aquis Sulis, Beaduorum and Venta Belgarum; the northern gate’s survives and has been compared to gates at Caerwent and Malmesbury. Inside, structures included domestic insulae with timber-framed houses, stone-built masonry residences with mosaics comparable to examples from Fishbourne Roman Palace and public buildings with colonnades akin to the fora of Verulamium and Bath. Evidence of a basilica-like building, workshops, bakeries with ovens and a possible mansio indicate administrative, industrial and hospitality functions similar to those at Durnovaria and Isca Dumnoniorum. Street surfaces incorporated quarried local chalk and imported stone; drainage systems relate to urban engineering practiced across Britannia.

Economy and Trade

Calleva was a regional hub for agrarian produce from the surrounding Hampshire Downs and Thames Valley hinterland and participated in long-distance exchange via wagon routes linked to Stane Street and the Icknield Way. Market activities included grain, livestock and artisanal goods; craft production at Calleva produced metalwork, pottery, and leather items comparable to assemblages from Cirencester and Colchester. Imported goods testify to maritime and overland trade: amphorae from Hispania Baetica, Mauretania Tingitana and the Eastern Mediterranean, fine wares from Arretium and Gaulish kilns, and glassware paralleled at Silchester with finds from Lutudarum. Coin hoards linking emperors such as Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Diocletian and Constantine I illuminate monetary circulation and fiscal relationships with provincial centres including Londinium and Venta Belgarum.

Religion and Cemeteries

Religious life combined native cult practices of the Atrebates with Roman polytheism including dedications to deities found across Roman Britain such as Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva and interpretative syncretism with Celtic deities like Epona and Toutatis. Inscriptions and votive deposits reveal links to imperial cult observances connected to sanctuaries in Londinium and provincial ceremonial practices documented at Bath (Roman) and Verulamium. Cemetery zones outside the walls yielded inhumations and cremations with grave goods comparable to burials at Bignor Roman Villa and Hampton Court Park, and osteoarchaeological studies have been undertaken by teams from University of Cambridge and University of Oxford to reconstruct diet and demography.

Post-Roman Decline and Legacy

After the 5th century Calleva’s urban life contracted and by the early medieval period the site was largely abandoned as populations relocated to emerging centres like Winchester and Reading. Documentary sources, numismatic evidence and archaeological stratigraphy inform models of continuity and collapse debated by scholars at institutions such as The British School at Rome and the Royal Archaeological Institute. Modern heritage management by English Heritage and research initiatives at universities continue to reinterpret Calleva’s role in transitions from Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England. The site influenced Victorian and modern antiquarianism including publications by the Society of Antiquaries of London and remains a key case study for Romano-British urbanism taught in curricula at University College London and University of Cambridge.

Category:Roman towns in England Category:Archaeological sites in Berkshire