PENNOCRUCIUM
Staffordshire, England.
Settlement at the junction of the roads to Wroxeter and
central Wales (Watling Street) and the branch to Chester. Its military importance is shown by the presence of at least five forts, which have yet to be satisfactorily related.
1) Kinvaston: a fort of ca. 10.4 ha, reduced to 7.2 ha,
which may be Neronian; 2) Stretton Mill: a sequence of
two forts, the smaller 1.4 ha in extent but both as yet
undated; 3) S of the road a fort of ca. 2 ha may be later
in the sequence; 4) indications of marching camps N of
the road at Water Eaton, and a small camp by the river
Penk. A straggling civil settlement, presumably with shops
and tabernae, grew up along the road. The small defended enclosure with three ditches and a wall (?) astride the road is, like others along Walting Street, presumably early 4th c.
A mile to the S at Engleton is a villa excavated in
1937. It was a winged-corridor type on the river, occupied from the late 2d to the middle of the 4th c. The name appears in the
Antonine Itinerary.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Military sites:
Trans. Birmingham Arch.
Soc. 69 (1951) 50-56; 73 (1955) 100-8; 74 (1956) 1-11;
JRS 43 (1953) 83-84; 48 (1958) 94; 55 (1965) 76-77;
63 (1973) 233f. Villa:
Staffs Record Soc. (1938).
C. WEBSTER
