Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester) was the civitas capital of the Atrebates, developing from a late Iron Age oppidum founded c. 25–15 BC — possibly by Commius or his successors — into a planned Roman town occupied from the conquest period until its abandonment, unusually, by the early 5th–7th century AD. At its height in the 2nd–3rd centuries it covered c. 40 hectares within polygonal earthwork defences, later enclosed by a stone wall (c. AD 250–280), with a regular street grid, forum-basilica, public baths, mansio, and several temples including a probable early church.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
As one of the principal administrative centres of southern Britannia, Calleva functioned as a regional road hub where routes from London, Winchester, Cirencester, Old Sarum, and Dorchester converged, making it both an economic node and the political seat of the Atrebatic civitas. It is particularly notable for never being built over after its abandonment, preserving the Roman plan beneath pasture.
Excavated almost in its entirety by the Society of Antiquaries between 1890 and 1909 — an exceptional but methodologically dated campaign — and revisited by Michael Fulford's University of Reading project (Insula IX, the basilica, and the baths) from the 1970s onwards, the site has yielded the famous Silchester eagle, the ogham-inscribed stone, extensive epigraphy, and det
Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester) was the civitas capital of the Atrebates, developing from a late Iron Age oppidum founded c. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a settlement site from the Roman period in Britain.
Calleva 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 amphitheater at Calleva Atrebatum (0.5 km), Roman site NW of Woodgarston Farm (8.9 km), Lodge Farm Roman villa (13.7 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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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.
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