ABSTRACT
Silchester (Calleva Atrebatum) in Hampshire is one of a small number of Roman towns in the province of Britannia with either chartered status of colonia or municipium, or that of caput civitatis, which did not re-emerge as urban centres in the late Saxon period and continue to develop to the present day. Its comparators include Aldborough in Yorkshire (Isurium Brigantum), Caerwent, Gwent (south-east Wales) (Venta Silurum), Caistor-by-Norwich, Norfolk (Venta Icenorum), St Albans, Hertfordshire (Verulamium) and Wroxeter, Shropshire (Viroconium Cornoviorum). In some cases it is possible to see that the medieval and modern equivalent has developed close by the Roman centre. Most obvious here is St Albans, developing around the shrine of St Alban in the immediate suburbs of the Roman town, while the successors of Caistor and Wroxeter can be traced respectively at nearby Norwich and Shrewsbury. Aldborough and Caerwent have no obvious urban successors, though they, like all the other examples cited here, supported villages in the Middle Ages which have continued to the present day. Evidence of the medieval villages formerly associated with Caistor, Silchester and Wroxeter is distinctively represented by their respective parish churches, these in each case forming one of the very few surviving buildings of any date immediately inside or adjacent to the former Roman town walls.
