Caesaromagus, located beneath modern Chelmsford in Essex, was a small Romano-British town on the road from London (Londinium) to Colchester (Camulodunum), developing from a fort and roadside settlement established in the 60s AD, probably in the aftermath of the Boudican revolt. It grew into an 8-hectare nucleated settlement that flourished through the second and third centuries and persisted, though contracted, into the fourth century.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The name — "Caesar's marketplace/plain" — is unique in Britain as the only known town carrying an imperial honorific, suggesting it may have been intended (or briefly served) as a regional administrative centre, perhaps the civitas capital of the Trinovantes before that role settled at Colchester, or as a planned imperial foundation that never fully realised its status. Its position at a day's march from Londinium made it a key mansio (official posting station) on the principal road into the eastern province.
Excavations, particularly those by the Chelmsford Archaeological Trust from the 1970s onward, have revealed an early Flavian fort, a substantial mansio complex with bathhouse, timber and later masonry strip-buildings fronting the main road, pottery kilns, and an octagonal Romano-Celtic temple in the southern part of the settlement at Great Dunmow Road/Godfrey's Mews. Finds include extensive samian and coarseware assembl
Caesaromagus, located beneath modern Chelmsford in Essex, was a small Romano-British town on the road from London (Londinium) to Colchester (Camulodunum), developing from a fort and roadside settlement established in the 60s AD, probably in the aftermath of the Boudican revolt. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a settlement site from the Roman period in Britain.
Caesaromagus 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 Chignall St. James (4.6 km), Roman villa 200m east of Howletts (5.8 km), Roman villa 100m north west of Handley Barns (8 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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