A Mansio at Lower Wanborough, Wiltshire

Abstract

Identified as the Durocornovium' of the Antonine Itinerary, the RomanoBritish settlement at Lower Wanborough is located on Ermin Street, 221 km south-east of Cirencester (Corinium Dobunnorum). A road from Winchester (Venta Belgarum), passing through Mildenhall (Cunetio), joins the main highhere. The site occupies an area of low-lying Kimmeridge clay, set between a chalk escarpment 4 km to the south and rising to 168 m O.D., and a Corallian escarpment 7-! km to the north that descends into the Upper Thames valley. It has been known from at least the seventeenth century that Roman remains were to be found here. Aubrey stated that 'at several places here about are every yeare digged up Roman coynes, ruines of houses and black ashes, especially about the meadow called the Nigh'.2 Among other notable antiquarians who have visited the site were Colt Hoare in 18193 and A. D. Passmore. Passmore, who lived at Wanborough, first established the name of the site and that it covered an area of at least I 19o m by 460 m.4 Because of encroaching housing development of the nearby town of Swindon and the planned re-alignment of the A 419, rescue excavation on behalf of the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works commenced on the western side of the site. The excavations, directed by Ernest Greenfield in 1966-685 and by John Wacher in 1969-70,6 concentrated mainly upon the buildings that fronted either side of Ermin Street north of the Dorcan stream that flows through the site. A