The Towns of Roman Britain

by J. O. Bevan

SILCHESTER.—In North Hampshire—Calleva, 10 miles south of Reading.

A Romano-British town, which was thoroughly explored under the auspices of the Society of Antiquaries between 1890 and 1909. The whole plan of the ancient town within the walls was disclosed as successive portions were uncovered. The suburbs, and the cemeteries, which, as usual, were located without the gates, have not yet been excavated. The ruins of the Town Hall still remain. The Duke of Wellington, whose residence is at Strathfieldsaye, is the owner of the site. He has arranged that most of the objects found at Silchester shall be deposited in the Museum at Reading.

ST. ALBANS.—Verulamium.

Originally within the limits of the territory of the tribe of which Cassivellaunus was, at one time, the head. Before the Roman Conquest it was a British capital. In Roman times it received the dignity of a municipium—implying municipal status and Roman citizenship for its free inhabitants. Tacitus informs us that the town was burnt by Boadicea in 61 A.D., but it soon rose again to prosperity. The site is still easily recognisable, its walls, of flint rubble, surviving in stately fragments, enclosing an area of well-nigh 200 acres. Of the buildings formerly occupying this area but little is now known. The theatre was excavated in 1847, and parts of the forum in 1898. The tower of the famous Abbey is largely built of bricks taken from the Roman buildings!

During the first three centuries ten distinct general persecutions swept over the nascent Christian Church. Owing to the remote position of Britain, it appears to have escaped these fiery trials until the time of the Emperor Diocletian, about 304. Several names among the Britons have been traditionally handed down to us as having received the honour of martyrdom, but the premier place among them has always been accorded to a young soldier who was stationed at Verulam. It appears that he was converted by an evangelist named Amphibalus, to whom, when the trial came, he gave shelter, and even facilitated his escape by an exchange of garments. When brought before the judges and charged with concealing "a blasphemer of the Roman gods," Alban avowed himself a convert to the proscribed religion and refused, in spite of torture, to burn incense upon the heathen altars. He was therefore beheaded outside the city about the year 285 (although the precise date is uncertain).¹⁰ About A.D. 785, Offa, king of that part of Britain which we call the Midland Counties, caused search to be made for the bones of the proto-martyr, and built a noble monastery and church where they were found, which possibly may be identified with the older parts of the present structure.¹¹ Eventually his shrine was reared up in the South transept of the Cathedral. Behind and just above the shrine is the Watching Gallery, where devotees offered continual prayer and guarded the relics from fire and robbery. Close by is another shrine in memory of S. Amphibalus. The monastery attained to great eminence—its head was the premier Abbot of England—and the shrine was loaded with ornaments of enormous value. The glory departed at the time of the Dissolution under Henry VIII. The Monastic Church is now admitted to the rank of a Cathedral. The building was restored (or deformed?) at great cost by the first Lord Grimthorpe, who did things with all his right, but, as in this case, as some say, with all his wrong.

¹⁰ [Appendix D].

¹¹ These words are written within a mile of a site in Kent which bears the name of St. Albans, inasmuch as a small daughter-house was established there.

The church in the neighbourhood of old St. Albans, on the North side of the chancel, contains a monument to the memory of Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Albans, a great lawyer, an incisive thinker, the founder of the school of inductive philosophers—a man who, unhappily, was cast from his exalted legal position by the malice of his foes. How far he himself contributed to his disgrace we will not say.