Durovigutum was a Romano-British small town on Ermine Street at the crossing of the River Great Ouse, roughly 25 km northwest of Cambridge. It originated as a Claudian-era fort around AD 43–60, but developed during the later 1st century into a thriving civilian settlement that flourished through the 2nd–4th centuries before contracting in the late Roman period.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The town served as an important staging post and local administrative centre on the main road linking London to Lincoln and York, with an additional road junction connecting to Cambridge and Sandy. Its possession of a substantial mansio and, later, town defences indicates a notable role in the official cursus publicus and regional economy of the territory of the Catuvellauni or Iceni borderlands.
Excavations directed by H.J.M. Green from the 1950s–70s revealed the Claudian fort, a large stone mansio with bath-house, a basilica-like public building, timber and stone houses, and the late Roman defensive circuit comprising rampart, walls, and ditches enclosing roughly 11 hectares. Finds include a notable corn-drying complex, evidence of bronze-working, and inscriptions and altars suggesting the presence of religious activity, including a possible temple precinct.
Durovigutum was a Romano-British small town on Ermine Street at the crossing of the River Great Ouse, roughly 25 km northwest of Cambridge. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a settlement site from the Roman period in Britain.
Durovigutum 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 barrow adjacent to Ermine Street, 290m east of St Bartholomew's Church (4.8 km), Roman barrow 450m south west of Stukeley Park (4.9 km), Roman Small Town south of Great Staughton (13.2 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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