Wroxeter

views updated

Wroxeter. 5 miles east of Shrewsbury was the Romano-British town of Viroconium Cornoviorum, the civitas of the Cornovii, where Watling Street crossed the Severn. The original settlement was a fortress, manned at first by legio XIV and, after ad 66, by legio XX. When the army left in ad 90 to move to its base at Chester, Viroconium developed as an important civilian settlement, with an aqueduct, baths, drainage, forum, and temple. The theory of a catastrophic sacking and burning by the Saxons has now been abandoned and the town seems to have suffered slow decay as people moved to Shrewsbury instead.

J. A. Cannon

More From encyclopedia.com