GREAT CASTERTON
Rutland, England.
On
Ermine Street, 17 km N of Durobrivae and 35 km S
of Ancaster, where the Roman road crosses the little
river Gwash. Its Roman name is unknown.
There is no trace of any considerable Iron Age site in
the vicinity; the settlement developed from the vicus of
an auxiliary fort of the conquest period. The fort itself
was discovered from the air in 1959, and excavation
showed that there were two main phases in its occupation.
The defenses of the original area of 2.4 ha included a
turf rampart and two widely spaced ditches, defining a
fire-trap into which attackers might be lured and dispatched. The SE side had a third ditch of lesser dimensions, placed within the fire-trap. The defenses were a
rectangle with smoothly rounded corners, and there were
gates in three of the four sides (there was no porta
decumana). The internal buildings, all of timber, have
been only briefly explored; their complete plan cannot
be reconstructed, but the praetorium and at least two
barracks can be identified. The date of this first phase
is from ca. A.D. 45 to ca. A.D. 70-75.
The second phase of occupation involved a reduction
in area to ca. 2 ha by shortening the longer sides and
by building a new length of defenses across the SE quarter of the earlier fort. The internal buildings were drastically remodeled, presumably for a unit of different size.
This occupation was short, ending ca. A.D. 80, when the
fort was abandoned, although civilian life continued in
the vicus at the river crossing. This village may have been
founded during occupation of the fort. By the 3d c. it had
defenses; a stone wall 2.4 m wide, an earth rampart,
and at least one ditch. The circuit was an irregular polygon of seven or eight sides. Few buildings have been
located within the walls. The earliest is a late 1st c.
bath in the S corner, which may have been associated
with an inn. There was little or no attempt at internal
planning and no grid of streets was laid out.
In the late 4th c., probably ca. A.D. 370, the defenses
were modified by the addition of small projecting towers
at the points where the wall changed direction. To accommodate these towers, the early ditch was filled up
and a much broader ditch dug farther out; this can still
be traced on the N and E sides. The settlement probably
survived into the 5th c. Evidence for such survival comes
from a villa 0.8 km to the NE, originally established in
the mid 4th c. and refurbished and enlarged after ca.
A.D. 370. It was occupied well into the 5th c. before
being damaged by fire and abandoned. The ruins were
still put to agricultural use, however, by men living
within the defended site nearby. A small number of early
Anglo-Saxon cremation burials outside the N defenses
also attests mid-5th c. occupation.
Great Casterton provides a clear instance of a civilian
settlement developing from the vicus outside an early
fort. Here for the first time the structural sequence of
small town defenses was fully adumbrated, as was the
close association of the small town with the surrounding
countryside. Finds are in the Rutland County Museum,
Oakham.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
P. Corder,
The Roman Town and
Villa at Great Casterton, Rutland (1951); II (1954);
III (1961); M. Todd,
The Roman Fort at Great Casterton, Rutland (1968).
M. TODD
