ROMAN REMAINS IN ENGLAND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19472, 6 May 1925, Page 11

ROMAN REMAINS IN ENGLAND.

All students of Romo in England aro awaiting with keen interest tho renewal of the excavation work on tho site of Viroconium'. a Roman city which lies seven miles south of Shrewsbury. Last season’s finds resulted in the discovery of many rooms, passages,: pottery, coins, and other objects, but outstanding above all there was tho inscription, remarkable for ihe fineness of its cutting and for being the largest ever found in Britain. It was found during tho uncovering of tho important civio building unearthed last year, states the Sphere. Tho inscrintion tells us of the dedication of the newly discovered building by the Civitas Cornoviorum in. the fourteenth year of the reign of Hadrian, which gives us the date, 130 |A.D; The site of this Roman city covers an area of 170 acres, and much interest, has been aroused by last season’s work and by the probable results of the coming IMS excavations. To reach Viroconium one journeys from Shrewsbury to Wroxeter, and there on© discovers that Viroconium (or Uriconium) occupies a bold pieoo of ground elevated above the level of the River Severn. One looks over an ordinary roadside hedge, and «n astonishing sight meets the eye. There in a trench below aro the remains of the finest Roman colonnade yet unearthed in this country. The bases of the columns are well preserved, and one gets an instant thrill of standing on ground which has witnessed a great civilisation which has passed. All that is known at present is that Afireconium was about half the size of Roman London. For a short time after 50 A.D. it was a camp for one, or, perhaps, two, legions. Tombs of soldiers have been found in its cemetery. After 67 A.D. the civil settlement which had grown up round the camp developed into one on the moat important towns of th© provinces. It is mentioned in Ptolemv’s Geopraphy, compiled about 120 A.D. Ptolemy’s name for it was Viroconium, which, with Uriconium and Wroxeter, are believed to b© derived from the Wrekin, the famous hill 4 or 5 miles distant, from which the Romans, supported by the garrison at Chest&r, dominated this part of the country. The site was at first excavated some decades ago, but the original efforts died away owing to lack of funds; a little was done in 1912-14, but it was only„’ast year that serious excavation was renewed by the Birmingham Archaeological Society on the site by the generosity of Sir Charles Hyde. A great hell or basilica has been discovered, together with a complete Bet of baths such as one finds in a Roman city of this kind; an cnamcller’s shop has also been uncovered, with furnace and anvil.