GODMANCHESTER
(“Durovigutum”) Huntingdonshire, England.
Probably the Durovigutum of
the
Ravenna Cosmography, close to the Great Ouse
ca. 1.6 km S of Huntingdon. Here Ermine Street, from
London to Lincoln, crossed the river and was joined
by roads from Colchester and Verulamium. The position was guarded by a fort in the mid 1st c.; the later
settlement developed from the vicus or traders' settlement
adjacent to a military post, which acted as a local market center and also prospered from road and river
traffic.
It has been claimed that the town was divided into a
series of regular plots aligned with Ermine Street, 135
Roman feet square and with posts marking the corners,
but no plan is yet available. In the Hadrianic period a
large inn was built near the center, over part of the
abandoned fort; it was a courtyard building of 32 rooms
and evidence of staircases to an upper story. Nearby
was a bath building provided with water by a leat. The
establishment may have had an official character as part
of the imperial posting system. A late 2d c. ditch and
palisade has been claimed to represent the construction
of a new fort under Severus, probably to counter the
danger of sea-borne raids penetrating the river system,
but confirmation of the military character of the remains is still lacking. During the 3d c. the settlement
was walled, but despite this it was sacked ca. A.D. 300.
In the 4th c. there was a partial recovery: the latest levels
have yielded early Saxon pottery.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
M. Green,
Current Archaeology 16
(1969); “Roman Britain,”
Britannia 2 (1971) 264.
S. S. FRERE
