Alauna (Alcester, Warwickshire) was a Roman small town that developed at the confluence of the Rivers Arrow and Alne, at the junction of Ryknild Street and the Salt Way. Although a fort or military presence is suspected from the mid-1st century AD (likely associated with the early conquest period), the site is better characterised as a thriving civilian settlement from the 2nd to 4th centuries, with substantial occupation continuing into the late Roman period.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Alauna functioned primarily as a roadside market town and craft-production centre serving the agricultural hinterland of the West Midlands, with evidence of metalworking, ironworking and possibly leather production. Its position on Ryknild Street made it an important node linking the Fosse Way region with the Trent Valley and the legionary fortress at Wroxeter.
Excavations from the 1920s onward, and more extensively by Birmingham Archaeology and others under modern Alcester, have revealed stone buildings, a defensive circuit with ditches and a town wall added in the later Roman period, industrial areas, cemeteries, and substantial assemblages of pottery, coins and metalwork. Direct evidence for an early fort remains elusive — military-style ditches and finds have been reported but no fort plan has been securely established, and the "fort" designation rests more on inference from the place-name and strategic position than on confirmed structural evidence.
Alauna (Alcester, Warwickshire) was a Roman small town that developed at the confluence of the Rivers Arrow and Alne, at the junction of Ryknild Street and the Salt Way. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a fort site from the Roman period in Britain.
Alauna is classified as a Roman fort — a military site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including Roman town (3.8 km), Aqueduct (8.2 km), Tiddington Roman Settlement (14.8 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
Aubrey Research generates detailed historical reports for any location in Britain, incorporating Roman heritage, Domesday Book records, scheduled monument data, archaeological finds and much more. Enter a nearby address to begin.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any address in Britain — drawing on Roman heritage, Domesday records, scheduled monument data, archaeological finds and medieval history to reveal the complete story of a landscape.
Research the area around Alauna