Stoke Hill lies on high ground roughly 3 km north-east of the Roman town of Isca Dumnoniorum (Exeter), and is conventionally interpreted as a small Roman signal station rather than a true mansio. The earthwork — a modest sub-rectangular enclosure with bank and ditch — is generally placed in the mid-to-late Roman period, though its dating is poorly secured and it may have functioned in conjunction with the legionary fortress and later civitas capital below.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Its hilltop position commands wide views over the Exe valley and the approaches to Exeter, suggesting a role in observation and signalling, linking the town with outlying installations along the South-Western peninsula. If correctly identified, it is one of relatively few candidate signal stations known in Dumnonia, a region with otherwise sparse evidence for the late Roman military signalling network familiar from the north and east coasts.
Limited investigation by Aileen Fox in the mid-20th century recorded the earthwork and recovered some Roman material, but no substantive excavation has clarified its plan, internal structures, or chronology. The identification as a signal station rests more on topography and form than on stratified finds, and the site remains essentially unproven.
Stoke Hill lies on high ground roughly 3 km north-east of the Roman town of Isca Dumnoniorum (Exeter), and is conventionally interpreted as a small Roman signal station rather than a true mansio. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a mansio / station site from the Roman period in Britain.
Stoke Hill is classified as a Roman mansio / station — 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 Unnamed Roman fort, Cheeke Street, Exeter (2.4 km), Isca Dumnoniorum (2.4 km), Exeter Roman Bathhouse (2.8 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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