Alchester was a Roman fort and later a small walled town in Oxfordshire, established as an early military base around AD 43–44 in the immediate aftermath of the Claudian invasion. The fortress, identified through aerial photography and excavation by Eberhard Sauer, appears to have housed a vexillation of Legio II Augusta, with twin enclosures and a substantial annexe; it was succeeded in the later 1st century by a civilian roadside settlement at the junction of Akeman Street and the road from Dorchester-on-Thames to Towcester.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Alchester is one of the earliest and most securely dated Roman military installations in Britain, providing critical evidence for the speed and depth of the Claudian advance into the Midlands. Its possible association with the future emperor Vespasian — who commanded II Augusta during the conquest — and the precise dendrochronological dating of its gate timbers (felled in autumn AD 44) make it a benchmark site for invasion-period archaeology.
Excavations from the late 1990s onwards revealed defensive ditches, a timber gateway with oak posts dated by dendrochronology to AD 44/45, and a tombstone of a veteran of Legio II Augusta, Lucius Valerius Geminus. The later town has produced a defensive circuit, street grid, masonry buildings and a substantial assemblage of coins, pottery and metalwork, though much of the walled area remains unexc
Alchester was a Roman fort and later a small walled town in Oxfordshire, established as an early military base around AD 43–44 in the immediate aftermath of the Claudian invasion. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a fort site from the Roman period in Britain.
Alchester 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 Merton Roman Camp (0.7 km), Alchester Roman parade ground, access road and marching camp (0.8 km), Two sections of a Roman road on Ot Moor (6.1 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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