ROMANO-BRITISH WORCESTERSHIRE 



north-east. To these must be added a long single road, the only im- 

 portant one which had no connection with London. This is the Foss, 

 which cuts obliquely across the island from north-east to south-west, 

 joining Lincoln, Leicester, Bath and Exeter. These roads must be 

 understood as being only the main roads, divested for the sake of clear- 

 ness of many branches and intricacies ; and understood as such they 

 may be taken to represent a reasonable supply of internal communications 

 for the province. After the Roman occupation had ceased, they were 

 largely utilized by the English, but they do not resemble the roads of 

 medieval England in their grouping and economic significance. One 

 might rather compare them to the railways of to-day, which radiate 

 similarly from London. In Worcestershire we shall be concerned princi- 

 pally with branches and routes of lesser importance, but the preceding 

 sketch seemed desirable in order to fit these lesser routes into their 

 proper places. 



Such in the main was that large part of Roman Britain in which 

 ordinary non-military civilized life prevailed. To that part Worcester- 

 shire belongs, and when we pass on to survey in detail the Roman 

 remains discovered in the county, we might expect to meet the features 

 which we have sketched in the preceding paragraphs. To a certain 

 extent our expectation will not be disappointed. There undoubtedly 

 existed in Worcestershire a Romano-British civilization of the normal 

 type, with town and villa and road. But though normal in type, that 

 civiUzation was by no means normal in amount. Towns and villas and 

 roads were very scarce ; industries were wholly or almost wholly absent, 

 and in general the remains with which we have to deal are few and 

 comparatively unimportant. Much of the county was doubtless forest ; 

 much must have needed draining, and the whole valley of the Severn 

 from Bewdley to Tewkesbury contained probably a small population. 

 It is not merely that Worcestershire possesses fewer Roman remains than 

 its southern neighbour of Gloucester, with its two great towns and its 

 crowd of villas large and small, and its numerous and important roads : 

 even Herefordshire in this respect excels Worcestershire. Some allow- 

 ance must perhaps be made for the absence of exploration, for Worcester- 

 shire is almost unique among the English counties in this, that no single 

 Roman remain within its borders has ever been excavated of set purpose. 

 But even so we must admit that the county is to be classed as one of the 

 thinner spaces (if we may use the phrase) in Roman Britain. 



2. Places of Settled Occupation : Worcester. 



Worcestershire, so far as it is at present known to us, contains no site 

 which can be described as being demonstrably the site of a large 

 Romano-British town. It has no Gloucester or Cirencester. But the 

 various remains found at Worcester, though they include no definite 

 traces of houses or other buildings, may nevertheless be accepted as 

 evidence of some little town or settlement. 



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