Long Wittenham, in the Thames floodplain of southern Oxfordshire (historically Berkshire), is best known for an extensive Anglo-Saxon presence including a great hall complex and one of the largest Saxon cemeteries in the region, but the site also has substantial Romano-British antecedents. Roman-period activity spans roughly the 1st to 4th centuries AD, comprising a small rural settlement with field systems, enclosures, and trackways set within the densely occupied Thames Valley landscape near the major centre at Dorchester-on-Thames.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The site sits within the agricultural hinterland of Dorchester (Dorocina), contributing to the productive belt of low-status farmsteads and villages supplying that town and the wider Upper Thames economy. Its continuity into the early Anglo-Saxon period — with a high-status hall complex and a large 5th–6th century cemetery containing rich grave goods (including the famous Long Wittenham Stoup) — makes it especially valuable for studying late and post-Roman transition in the region.
Excavations and aerial surveys have revealed Romano-British ditches, enclosures, pottery scatters, and coins consistent with a modest farming settlement, alongside the more intensively investigated Saxon cemetery first opened by J. Y. Akerman in the 1860s and the later-identified hall complex. The detailed character and extent of the Roman phase remain less fully published
Long Wittenham, in the Thames floodplain of southern Oxfordshire (historically Berkshire), is best known for an extensive Anglo-Saxon presence including a great hall complex and one of the largest Saxon cemeteries in the region, but the site also has substantial Romano-British antecedents. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a settlement site from the Roman period in Britain.
Anglo-Saxon great hall complex and Roman settlement features at Long Wittenham is classified as a Roman settlement — a civilian 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 (2.9 km), Dorchester-on-Thames (3 km), Site of Roman kilns (4.3 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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Research the area around Anglo-Saxon great hall complex and Roman settlement features at Long Wittenham