Blackwardine is a small Romano-British roadside settlement in Herefordshire, situated near the line of a Roman road running north from Magnis (Kenchester) toward Stretford Bridge and the Wroxeter area. Occupation appears to span the later 1st through 4th centuries AD, with the site interpreted as a minor nucleated settlement or vicus serving local agricultural and exchange functions in the territory of the Dobunni/Cornovii borderland.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Its importance lies in marking a node on the road network linking Kenchester with Wroxeter and the Welsh Marches, suggesting a modest economic role as a wayside market or service settlement rather than an administrative or military centre. It is one of several such lesser-known roadside settlements that fleshed out the rural infrastructure of western Britannia.
The site is principally known from antiquarian and early 20th-century discoveries — notably finds reported by Jack and others in the 1910s–20s, including pottery, coins, and structural traces — and from cropmark evidence indicating enclosures and possible building plots along the road. No major modern excavation has been published, and the settlement's full extent, plan, and chronology remain poorly defined.
Blackwardine is a small Romano-British roadside settlement in Herefordshire, situated near the line of a Roman road running north from Magnis (Kenchester) toward Stretford Bridge and the Wroxeter area. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a settlement site from the Roman period in Britain.
Blackwardine 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 settlement (0.6 km), Roman fort at Coppice House (15.2 km), Magnis (16.2 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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