Margidunum was a Romano-British roadside settlement on the Fosse Way at Castle Hill, near present-day Bingham in Nottinghamshire. It originated as a mid-first century military post (c. AD 50s–70) and developed after the army's departure into a small nucleated town that flourished from the late first through fourth centuries, eventually acquiring a defensive enclosure with bank, ditch and stone wall in the later Roman period.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
It functioned as a local market and posting station on the Fosse Way roughly midway between Vernemetum and Ad Pontem, serving the agricultural hinterland of the Trent valley and probably acting as a minor administrative node for the surrounding rural population. Its longevity — unlike many short-lived Fosse Way forts — marks it as one of the more substantial small towns of the East Midlands.
Excavations by Felix Oswald in the 1910s–1920s and later work by Malcolm Todd in the 1960s revealed the defensive circuit, timber and stone buildings, pottery kilns, wells, and a substantial assemblage of coins, samian and locally produced wares; the early military phase is attested by fort ditches and first-century military equipment. More recent fieldwork associated with the A46 improvement scheme (2009–2012) exposed extensive extramural settlement, cemeteries, and enclosure systems extending well beyond the walled core.
Margidunum was a Romano-British roadside settlement on the Fosse Way at Castle Hill, near present-day Bingham in Nottinghamshire. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a settlement site from the Roman period in Britain.
Margidunum 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 Margidunum Roman Station (0.9 km), Car Colston (2.1 km), Minor Romano-British villa, moat and associated medieval manorial and village earthworks, including six fishponds (2.2 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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