Magnae, sometimes Magnae Dobunnorum (Latin for "The Greats of the Dobunni") to distinguish it from the Magnae of the Carvetii on Hadrian's Wall in northern Britain, was a Romano-British town and an important market centre for the British Dobunni tribe, located near modern-day Kenchester in Herefordshire, England. The town was shaped as an irregular hexagon, with a single main street along the line of the main Roman Road running east–west through the area, and an irregular pattern of side streets with tightly packed buildings leading off it.
The Roman town is securely identified with the "Magnis" which appears both in the Antonine Itinerary and Ravenna Cosmography. The town is today sometimes referred to under the name "Magna". However, the town was not a colonia, nor a tribal capital, and Rivet and Smith derive the name from the Celtic word maen meaning 'stone' or 'rock'. The name may apply to the hills visible to the north of Kenchester.
The ruins of a Roman private bath house or temple that was possibly associated with a high-status Roman villa, which may have connections to Magnis, lie inside the Weir Garden by the River Wye. There is an octagonal cistern filled by a spring, and a ruined buttress by the river. These are the highest standing Roman ruins in Herefordshire.
Earthen defences have been found dating from the 2nd century, with later stone defences being built by the 4th century and occupation likely to have continued into the 5th century.
Sometime after the Battle of Deorham in 577 the town had become the base of the Mercian subkingdom of the Magonsaete ("Magon-dwellers").
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Magnae, sometimes Magnae Dobunnorum (Latin for "The Greats of the Dobunni") to distinguish it from the Magnae of the Carvetii on Hadrian's Wall in northern Britain, was a Romano-British town and an important market centre for the British Dobunni tribe, located near modern-day Kenchester in Herefordshire, England. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a settlement site from the Roman period in Britain.
Magnis 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 New Weir (1 km), New Weir Roman site (1.1 km), Bishopstone (1.7 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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