Red Hill, on a prominent bluff overlooking the confluence of the Soar and Trent near Ratcliffe-on-Soar, was the site of a Romano-British rural temple with associated settlement, active from the later 1st through the 4th century AD. The location commanded a strategic river crossing on the route between the small town of Margidunum and the Fosse Way, and the temple complex appears to have served both a local agricultural population and travellers using the river junction.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The site is one of the more important rural religious foci in the East Midlands, notable particularly for its assemblage of curse tablets (defixiones) — a category of find otherwise concentrated at major shrines like Bath and Uley, suggesting Red Hill functioned as a regional cult centre of some standing. Its riverside position also points to a role in cross-regional movement and possibly riverine trade between the Trent valley and the Fosse Way corridor.
Antiquarian and 20th-century investigations recovered at least three lead defixiones, substantial quantities of Roman coinage (with a strong late-Roman bias), brooches, and ceramic and structural debris consistent with a temple precinct, though no comprehensive modern excavation has fully characterised the buildings. The settlement evidence — scattered building material, pottery, and metalwork across the hill — suggests an associated small nucleated site, but its plan and extent remain poorly defined.
Red Hill, on a prominent bluff overlooking the confluence of the Soar and Trent near Ratcliffe-on-Soar, was the site of a Romano-British rural temple with associated settlement, active from the later 1st through the 4th century AD. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a settlement site from the Roman period in Britain.
Red Hill Roman Temple 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 site on Red Hill (0.4 km), Roman villa and enclosures N of Ratcliffe Lane (1.7 km), Roman fort 200yds (182m) E of All Saints' Church (2 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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