Pomeroy Wood (Gittisham) was a Roman military installation established in the late 1st century AD on the Fosse Way/Exeter road corridor in east Devon, roughly midway between Exeter (Isca Dumnoniorum) and the Dorset frontier. The fort belongs to the early phase of conquest-period campaigning in the South West, likely Neronian–early Flavian, and was succeeded on the same site by a roadside civilian settlement that persisted into the later Roman period.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
It formed part of the network of garrisons securing the route west towards Exeter during the consolidation of Dumnonian territory, controlling movement along what became the main Roman road through east Devon. Its later transformation into a vicus-type settlement illustrates the common trajectory in the region whereby military sites seeded modest civilian roadside communities.
The site was investigated in the late 1990s during the A30 Honiton–Exeter improvement scheme by Wessex Archaeology, which revealed military ditches, internal features and a substantial assemblage indicative of a short-lived fort, overlain and succeeded by enclosures, structures, burials and finds of the 2nd–4th centuries representing the later roadside settlement. Recovered material included pottery (samian and coarsewares), metalwork and evidence of ironworking from the civilian phase, though no stone-built monumental structures were identified.
Pomeroy Wood (Gittisham) was a Roman military installation established in the late 1st century AD on the Fosse Way/Exeter road corridor in east Devon, roughly midway between Exeter (Isca Dumnoniorum) and the Dorset frontier. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a fort site from the Roman period in Britain.
Pomeroy Wood 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 Seaton (13.5 km), Cullompton Forts (14.1 km), Moridunum (16.7 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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