ABSTRACT
It is surprising how much modern Britain has inherited from the Romans, and how many traces of their presence are still to be seen in the landscape. These range from standing monuments, to grass-covered mounds in fields, to sites which are only visible, under certain conditions, from the air. Moreover, we have to remember that the Romans' choice of a site, whether for a fort, town or villa, very much depended on the ideal geographical position within a given area, with, in the case of military sites, contemporary tactical or strategical considerations which rarely exist today. Consequently we find many medieval and modern towns and villages situated on top of their Roman predecessors mainly by accident of geography, not through continuity of settlement. Some did move, though, to take advantage of slightly more ideal conditions in the middles ages; thus Silchester became Reading, Wroxeter moved to Shrewsbury and Verulamium to St Albans. Even then a small village nucleus often remained behind. Villas equally were sometimes the source for the growth of villages and monastic communities for the same geographical reasons and not from any sense of continuity. It has been suggested, for instance, that the seventh-century monastic estate at Withington (Glos.) may reflect that of the earlier villa, and there are many other cases where a villa preceded a village, often with the church sitting on or near the ruins. It could be that these same ruins provided a close and convenient quarry for building stone.
