Wroxeter - Part 1: Roman City (Viriconium Cornoviorum)

D was on holiday last week so we spent a day at another English Heritage location. This time we travelled again along the M6 and M54 (I've done the route so much this year that even the M6 is losing its horror!!) to Wroxeter Roman City in Shropshire.

Before Romans invaded the area around Wroxeter was used as farmland by the Cornovii Tribe. Their main settlement was probably the hillfort on the nearby Wrekin.

Wroxeter Roman City was founded as a legionary fortress in the mid 1st century AD and the town developed in the 90's AD and it became the fourth largest town in Roman Britain. Wroxeter was a good defensive location for a fortress as it was protected to the north and south by streams and to the west by the River Severn. The fortress also controlled a major ford across the river that would have helped the Roman army to attack areas towards Wales. Before the Romans left the fortress at Wroxeter to move to Chester they destroyed the defences but left some buildings and these formed the nucleus of the new town developed by local people. People lived in the town until it was abandoned in the 7th century when the area was successfully invaded by the Anglo Saxon kingdom of Mercia. As time went by the area reverted to farmland and stones from the Roman buildings were used to build houses and a church.

Archaeologists began excavations in 1859 by the wall known as the "Old Work". The remains of Roman public baths were discovered and later excavations revealed the forum and houses - neither of which are now really visible. Today new technology used by archaeologists is revealing the secrets of the site hidden far below the soil.

Before we looked round outside we visited the museum which really was excellent - very informative and lots of artefacts on display that have been excavated from the site.

Not too many photos from the museum as although the light was ok objects in display cases don't seem to be very photogenic!

City Life

Memories of Home

Money

Weighing it Up

Working in Bone

Seal Boxes

The City Centre

In the foreground is the Bath's basilica which was the first part of a Roman public bath suite and a place where people could meet and exercise. It was entered from the street and was 74.5 metres long and 20 metres wide. The interior would have been classical with painted plaster walls and mosaics.

Looking towards what would have been the latrine, shops and market hall.

"The Old Work"

This wall has survived since AD 121 and is one of the largest pieces of Roman wall still standing in this country. The use of small squared stones laid with the occasional bonding tile courses is characteristic of the Romans. The baths here are at right angles to the Basilica.

A Roman bath house contained a series of rooms and a bather would proceed from cold to hot and then back to cold. The hottest rooms were nearest to the furnace. Attendants were there to give massages and to scrape a person's skin clean. Either side of the unheated frigidarium were rooms with sauna style heat. At the far end of the frigidarium was a warm tepidarium. The caldarium was a very hot steam filled room containing hot plunge baths. Use of the basilica and the baths was an important part of a Roman's social life.


Below is a photo of the remains of the frigidarium which was not heated and had cold plunge rooms. The floors consisted of stone slabs supported on stacks of tiles (pilae)

Timothy was trying very hard to understand what it would be like living in a Roman city and using the public baths.

The Plunge Pool

The market area

Column bases of the Forum's colonnade (a combined market square and town hall).

The reconstructed Town House was built in 2010 by 6 modern day builders who used only tools and materials available for the Romans. This featured in a tv programme "Rome wasn't built in a day". The design of the house is loosely based on a house on the Wroxeter site excavated recently. Rooms on the ground floor of the house include a porter's lodge, a reception and living room, a study, shop, bedroom and rooms for bathing.

The courtyard garden

We watched swallows swooping into the house to feed these juveniles who had only just left the nest.

In Part 2 we will wander down the lane where D collected blackberries while I visited the church.

All photos taken by me with the Panasonic Lumix FZ330 bridge camera.



Reference: EH Guide book to Wroxeter Roman City
Various information boards around the site.