ROMANO-BRITISH WARWICKSHIRE 



Coins still abound in the town. In a recent visit to Alcester I was 

 shown six silver coins, of Hadrian, Sabina, Pius, Aelius Verus(?), 

 Faustine and Constantine, and twenty ' third brass' of about A.D. 250 

 380, and I have heard of many others of similar dates. 1 From all this 

 we may conclude that Alcester, at any rate during the latter part of the 

 Roman period, was a village or perhaps a tiny town built by the side of 

 a Roman road in a pleasant well-watered spot. 



The Roman name of the place is unknown. The earlier spellings 

 of the modern name Alencestre, Alnacestre and the like contain a n 

 which has now dropped out, and this fact suggested to William Baxter, 

 early in the eighteenth century, that the Roman name was Alauna. His 

 theory was adopted by Bertram in his forgery of ' Richard of Ciren- 

 cester,' and has since passed into maps and guide books. It is, however, 

 a mere guess. Alcester appears in reality to derive its name from Alne, 

 the name of the river on which it stands, and Alne itself may be 

 descended from one of the very common Celtic names, Alauna, Alaunus 

 and their kindred forms. That, however, would not prove that a town 

 on the banks of the Alne was called Alauna, and, until more evidence 

 emerge, it will be wise to give the site no ancient name.' 



4. OTHER SETTLED SITES 



We pass from remains which seem to suggest hamlets or villages or 

 even a tiny town to remains which suggest something even smaller a 

 handful of isolated rural habitations. Of Roman villas properly so called 

 Warwickshire contains no ascertained instances. The villa system was 

 probably far less developed there than in many other districts. Not 

 only was the population thin throughout the midlands and the ground 

 largely covered with woods, but there was little in soil or climate to 

 encourage the two staple industries of rural Britain, sheep farming and 

 corn growing. We shall not therefore be surprised to find in Warwick- 

 shire few traces, and those faint ones, of villas or what may be villas. It 

 is only here and there that we encounter evidence suggestive of small 

 houses of the villa type. These houses are totally unexplored, like all 

 other Roman antiquities in the county, and opinions about them must 

 necessarily be conjectures, valuable (at the best) as working hypotheses. 

 Still, we may argue, from the tenuity of their recorded remains, that 

 they were small ; and we may not unreasonably presume that they 

 belonged to the same system which obtained over most parts of non- 

 military Britain. We have four instances to cite. 



1 Leland (ed. Hearne), iv. fo. l68<* ; Dugdale, p. 761 ; Clarke, itt supra ; N. Salmon, New Surrey 

 ('7301 P- 5 6 gold coin f Vespasian ; Gentleman's Magazine, 1785,11.941, urn from Blacklands ; Gough, 

 Add. to Camden, ii. 4.57, skeletons and coins on the Stratford Road ; Archerohgia, xvii. 332, burials in 

 Blacklands, 1812; information from the Rev. J. H. Bloom and others. Warwick Museum has a 

 sarcophagus found about 1866, and two urns (one containing ashes) from Blacklands. Mr. F. S. Potter 

 has coins of circa 250-400 A.D. 



* Baxter, Gkssarium Antij. Britann. (London, 1719), p. 10. If the name ^Eluuinae in Cartularium 

 Saxonicum, i. 287, refers really to the Warwickshire Alne, the identification of Alne and Alauna becomes 

 definitely probable, but it seems very uncertain whether it does so refer (W. H. Stevenson) 



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