Danum was a Roman auxiliary fort established on the south bank of the River Don, on the line of the road running north from Lincoln (Lindum) towards York (Eboracum). Founded in the 70s AD during the Flavian advance into northern Britain, it was rebuilt in stone in the 2nd century and remained occupied into the late 4th century, with the *Notitia Dignitatum* listing the *Crispinianae* cavalry unit stationed there under the Dux Britanniarum.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The fort guarded a strategic crossing of the Don on the main north–south arterial route (later Roman Ridge/the road to York), making Doncaster a key node controlling movement between the Humber lowlands and the Pennines. A civilian vicus developed alongside it, and the settlement's continuity is reflected in the persistence of the name *Danum* into the Anglo-Saxon period.
Excavations beneath central Doncaster — particularly around the parish church of St George's, which sits atop the fort — have revealed turf-and-timber defences, stone rampart walls, internal buildings, and pottery and coin sequences spanning the later 1st to 4th centuries. Modern urban development has heavily truncated the remains, but rescue work since the 1960s (notably by Magilton and Buckland) has established the fort's outline and confirmed multiple structural phases.
Danum was a Roman auxiliary fort established on the south bank of the River Don, on the line of the road running north from Lincoln (Lindum) towards York (Eboracum). It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a fort site from the Roman period in Britain.
Danum? 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 Roman Ridge, Roman road, NW of Doncaster (4.4 km), Romano-British enclosure and earthworks in Pot Ridings Wood (5.3 km), Edlington Wood Roman settlement (5.5 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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