MAGNIS
(Kenchester) Herefordshire, England.
A small walled town of ca. 8.8 ha with a roadside
suburb to the S in which there is a temple. Excavations
and aerial photographs show that the town grew up
along the main E-W road in the Wye valley.
The site undoubtedly owes much to military strategy
in the 1st c. Objects of military use were found in the
excavations of 1912-13 and 1924-25 in the center of the
town, which produced plans of fragments of buildings,
many at an angle to the main road. This haphazard development, in contrast to the grid plans of the tribal
capitals, has been confirmed by subsequent aerial photographs. Excavations of the defenses, which were kite-shaped in plan with the main street as the long axis,
show the usual two-phase construction. A ditch system
and earth bank was built at the end of the 2d c.; a
stone wall faced on both sides with substantial bastions,
and with gates, was added in the late 4th c. Molded
stones from the foundations of one of the bastions evidently came from a monumental structure demolished
for the purpose. The name is given in the
Antonine
Itinerary and the
Ravenna Cosmography.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Excavations:
Woolhope Nat. Hist. Field
Club (1916 & 1926); defenses: ibid. 35, 2 (1957) 138-45;
36, 1 (1958) 100-16; 37, 2 (1963) 149-78; aerial reconnaissance and suburb: ibid. 38, 3 (1967) 192-95.
G. WEBSTER
