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Title Page
Copyright information
Contents
List of Figures
Figure 1: The author, photographed in the office at Wroxeter by Graham Webster's wife, Diana Bonakis Webster, in 1987 at the start of the writing up process.
Figure 2: A visit by Eaton Constantine school to Wroxeter in July 1959. The custodian, Alf Crow, is explaining the site. For most of these children, this may well have been their first, and last, experience of the site. Image © Shropshire Archives (SA) 31
Figure 3: Wroxeter and its landscape viewed by air from the north. The arc of the northern rampart is apparent, as are the consolidated ruins at the centre of the site. The village is centre right. The River Severn is prominent, and the now demolished pin
Figure 4: Thomas Wright in a studio portrait by Ernest Edwards of Baker Street, London, 1866.
Figure 5: Illustrated London News engraving of the excavations in April 1859
the original would have been monochrome. Author's photo, 2019.
Figure 6: Donald Atkinson, by L. Haffer, 1946. Courtesy of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. Photo by the author, October 2021.
Figure 7: The western part of the Forum Inscription as first uncovered, shattered on the street below the entrance. After Atkinson 1942, pl.44B.
Figure 8: The Wroxeter Forum Inscription, as displayed at Rowley's House, Shrewsbury in the 1990s following its restoration. The paler areas are plaster - about 75% of the original inscription survives - but the restored letters can be confidently provide
Figure 9: Details of some of the letters in the inscription showing original tooling marks and stylistic details. Author's photos, August 2020.
Figure 10: David Kyndersley's and Lida Lopez Cardoza's artistic response to the Wroxeter Inscription. Author's photo 2013.
Figure 11: Eric Gill's Golden Cockerel font, 1929, based on the lettering in Wroxeter's forum inscription. Image courtesy of Mike Ashworth.
Figure 12: Graham Webster, in around 1948 when he was appointed as Curator at the Grosvenor Museum, Chester. Photo courtesy of Diana Bonakis Webster.
Figure 13: Mike Corbishley (l) and Phil Barker (r) celebrating the end of the baths basilica excavation in August 1985. Author's photo.
Figure 14: The baths basilica excavation July 1971 - ploughsoil is being removed by a trowelling line of diggers to reveal the underlying surface. Note that the fields beyond the site are still under cultivation. Photo by Phil Barker.
Figure 15: The Wrekin from near Cressage in a watercolour by Tom Prytherch, 1902. Image © Raby Estates 2020.
Figure 16: A map of the post-Roman kingdoms of England and Wales in the seventh - ninth century. Not all of these polities were extant at the same time. After Hill 1981, fig. 41 and Ray &
Bapty 2016, fig. 1.1. Drawing by Sophie Lamb.
Figure 17: Offa's Dyke on Llanfair hill, north of Knighton. Author's photo, December 1994.
Figure 18: The Pillar of Eliseg, near Llangollen, a ninth century monument commemorating the kings of Powys. Photo by Theo Bumpus, August 2020.
Figure 19: The Wem Hoard, a recent discovery of hacksilver including many coins (right) some of which have been cut into halves and quarters. It dates to the latter half of the fifth century. Author's photo, November 2018.
Figure 20: Regularly sized platforms on the south aisle which indicate timber buildings put up in the shell of the basilica. Photo Philip Barker, August 1974.
Figure 21: The tombstone of Cunorix, an Irishman buried at Wroxeter around AD500. The inscription is cut into a broken Roman tombstone. Author's photo, August 2011.
Figure 22: Lead pans for boiling brine to extract salt. Found at Shavington, Cheshire the inscriptions commemorate late Roman clerics presumably based at either Chester or Wroxeter. After Penney and Shotter 1996 and 2000.
Figure 23: A plan of the baths at Wroxeter with a plot showing the approximate location of burials mentioned by Thomas Wright. These cluster around the frigidarium, which may have become a chapel in the immediate post-Roman period. After Ellis 2000 with a
Figure 24: The post-Roman British defended coastal site at Degannwy, by Llandudno. This lay roughly on the border between Powys and Gwynedd. Its small size, and defensive qualities offer a stark contrast to the defensive situation at a place like Wroxeter
Figure 25: The proposed reconstruction of Wroxeter's territory in the Roman period, fossilised in the medieval diocesan boundary between Hereford and Lichfield. After Barker et al. 1997, fig.327.
Figure 26: A.E. Housman, by Francis Dodd. Image © National Portrait Gallery, London, 1926 NPG 3075.
Figure 27: The wooded scarp of Wenlock Edge, looking west. Author's photo, August 1993.
Figure 28: J.P. Bushe-Fox, Inspector of Ancient Monuments and an important innovator in Romano-British studies. Image courtesy of English Heritage Trust.
Figure 29: Sir Henry de Vere Vane, 9th Baron Barnard ('Statesmen No.704'). Chromolithograph by George S. Fothergill, as depicted in Vanity Fair on 15th December 1898. Image © National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG D44939.
Figure 30: Visitors to the excavations at Wroxeter being shown finds, perhaps by one of Bushe-Fox's student diggers. Photo courtesy of English Heritage Trust
Accession number 88038026.
Figure 31: 'The City in the Corn' as photographed by Henry Lang Jones in 1913
an atmospheric frontispiece to Songs of a Buried City.
Figure 32: Wilfred Owen in 1912, the same year that Bushe-Fox's excavations at Wroxeter started. Wilfred Owen Literary Estate.
Figure 34: Bushe-Fox's excavation of the Temple, Site V, in 1913 (see Figure 103). All those visible are probably labourers rather than student excavators. After Bushe-Fox 1914, pl.IV, 1.
Figure 35: A 1952 watercolour by Edwin H. Judd of the fonts from Shrewsbury Abbey and Wroxeter. The latter is certainly from a large Roman column base. Image © Shrewsbury Museum Service SHYMS: FA.1994.09.
Figure 36: Mary Webb, in around 1920. After Coles, 1977 frontispiece.
Figure 37: The display of micaceous sandstone tiles outside the site museum at Wroxeter. Photographed on 25th June 1914 by Arthur Whinfield, President of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society from 1916. Image © Worcester Archives 832 BA 16072 2310.
Figure 38: The Wroxeter Mirror - one of the most beautiful, and least-known, finds from Roman Britain. Author's photo, October 2010.
Figure 39: Mytton's rather schematic view of the Old Work's north side, 1721. The wall depicted to the left is the wall opposite (south of) the Old Work. Image © Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections, University of Birmingham (XMYT The Mytton Pape
Figure 40: The south façade of Attingham Hall. Author's photo, August 1985.
Figure 41: Attingham Hall as viewed from under William Hayward's bridge over the river Tern, which was in place by 1780. Author's photo, May 2021.
Figure 42: A page in Repton's Red Book for Attingham Park showing the suggested spire added to St Andrews, Wroxeter. The Tern bridge and river is also prominent in the image. Attingham Collection. © National Trust.
Figure 43: Cronk Hill, designed by John Nash in c.1802. Now restored to its original stone-coloured finish. Author's photo, July 2020.
Figure 44: Thomas Girtin's watercolour of the Old Work at Wroxeter, 1798. Private collection.
Figure 45: Pearson's 1807 engraving of the Old Work, based on Girtin's view. Author's photo.
Figure 46: Revd. William's watercolour of the north side of the Old Work, 1788. Image © SA 6001/372/1/68.
Figure 47: Revd. William's watercolour of the south side of the Old Work, 1788. Image © SA 6001/372/1/67.
Figure 48: David Parkes' engraving of the south side of the Old Work with fanciful background. After Urban 1813. Author's photo.
Figure 49: Hartshorne's engraving of the Old Work, as published in Salopia Antiqua, 1841. Author's photo.
Figure 50: The Old Work viewed from the north-east. From this position the roof of The Cottage can be seen framed in the doorway, as is still the case today. Image © West Northamptonshire and Northampton Archives, HaC vol XXIV, Hartshorne p.95, 1838.
Figure 51: Hartshorne's atmospheric view of the south side of the Old Work from a point diagonally opposite that in Figure 50. Note the build up on this side of the Old Work, not otherwise visible in any other view. It suggests there was a substantial amo
Figure 52: The Old Work as depicted in the frontispiece for Wright's Uriconium (1872). It is very clear from the sheer detail in this image that this engraving is copied from a photograph taken during the excavation, as confirmed by the spoil heaps in the
Figure 53: Tom Prytherch painting outside Topsy Cottage. A posed image since this is a postcard, as shown by the label. Probably ca. 1910. Private collection.
Figure 54: 'Wroxeter from Severn Fields', a watercolour by Tom Prytherch painted in 1920. The blue building is Tom's studio. The Cottage, the house tenanted by the Everalls from 1888, is centre left. Private Collection.
Figure 55: Tom Prytherch in his studio. Behind his head, partly obscured by other pictures, is one of his large oil paintings of the ruins at Wroxeter. Private collection.
Title Page
Copyright information
Contents
List of Figures
Figure 1: The author, photographed in the office at Wroxeter by Graham Webster's wife, Diana Bonakis Webster, in 1987 at the start of the writing up process.
Figure 2: A visit by Eaton Constantine school to Wroxeter in July 1959. The custodian, Alf Crow, is explaining the site. For most of these children, this may well have been their first, and last, experience of the site. Image © Shropshire Archives (SA) 31
Figure 3: Wroxeter and its landscape viewed by air from the north. The arc of the northern rampart is apparent, as are the consolidated ruins at the centre of the site. The village is centre right. The River Severn is prominent, and the now demolished pin
Figure 4: Thomas Wright in a studio portrait by Ernest Edwards of Baker Street, London, 1866.
Figure 5: Illustrated London News engraving of the excavations in April 1859
the original would have been monochrome. Author's photo, 2019.
Figure 6: Donald Atkinson, by L. Haffer, 1946. Courtesy of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. Photo by the author, October 2021.
Figure 7: The western part of the Forum Inscription as first uncovered, shattered on the street below the entrance. After Atkinson 1942, pl.44B.
Figure 8: The Wroxeter Forum Inscription, as displayed at Rowley's House, Shrewsbury in the 1990s following its restoration. The paler areas are plaster - about 75% of the original inscription survives - but the restored letters can be confidently provide
Figure 9: Details of some of the letters in the inscription showing original tooling marks and stylistic details. Author's photos, August 2020.
Figure 10: David Kyndersley's and Lida Lopez Cardoza's artistic response to the Wroxeter Inscription. Author's photo 2013.
Figure 11: Eric Gill's Golden Cockerel font, 1929, based on the lettering in Wroxeter's forum inscription. Image courtesy of Mike Ashworth.
Figure 12: Graham Webster, in around 1948 when he was appointed as Curator at the Grosvenor Museum, Chester. Photo courtesy of Diana Bonakis Webster.
Figure 13: Mike Corbishley (l) and Phil Barker (r) celebrating the end of the baths basilica excavation in August 1985. Author's photo.
Figure 14: The baths basilica excavation July 1971 - ploughsoil is being removed by a trowelling line of diggers to reveal the underlying surface. Note that the fields beyond the site are still under cultivation. Photo by Phil Barker.
Figure 15: The Wrekin from near Cressage in a watercolour by Tom Prytherch, 1902. Image © Raby Estates 2020.
Figure 16: A map of the post-Roman kingdoms of England and Wales in the seventh - ninth century. Not all of these polities were extant at the same time. After Hill 1981, fig. 41 and Ray &
Bapty 2016, fig. 1.1. Drawing by Sophie Lamb.
Figure 17: Offa's Dyke on Llanfair hill, north of Knighton. Author's photo, December 1994.
Figure 18: The Pillar of Eliseg, near Llangollen, a ninth century monument commemorating the kings of Powys. Photo by Theo Bumpus, August 2020.
Figure 19: The Wem Hoard, a recent discovery of hacksilver including many coins (right) some of which have been cut into halves and quarters. It dates to the latter half of the fifth century. Author's photo, November 2018.
Figure 20: Regularly sized platforms on the south aisle which indicate timber buildings put up in the shell of the basilica. Photo Philip Barker, August 1974.
Figure 21: The tombstone of Cunorix, an Irishman buried at Wroxeter around AD500. The inscription is cut into a broken Roman tombstone. Author's photo, August 2011.
Figure 22: Lead pans for boiling brine to extract salt. Found at Shavington, Cheshire the inscriptions commemorate late Roman clerics presumably based at either Chester or Wroxeter. After Penney and Shotter 1996 and 2000.
Figure 23: A plan of the baths at Wroxeter with a plot showing the approximate location of burials mentioned by Thomas Wright. These cluster around the frigidarium, which may have become a chapel in the immediate post-Roman period. After Ellis 2000 with a
Figure 24: The post-Roman British defended coastal site at Degannwy, by Llandudno. This lay roughly on the border between Powys and Gwynedd. Its small size, and defensive qualities offer a stark contrast to the defensive situation at a place like Wroxeter
Figure 25: The proposed reconstruction of Wroxeter's territory in the Roman period, fossilised in the medieval diocesan boundary between Hereford and Lichfield. After Barker et al. 1997, fig.327.
Figure 26: A.E. Housman, by Francis Dodd. Image © National Portrait Gallery, London, 1926 NPG 3075.
Figure 27: The wooded scarp of Wenlock Edge, looking west. Author's photo, August 1993.
Figure 28: J.P. Bushe-Fox, Inspector of Ancient Monuments and an important innovator in Romano-British studies. Image courtesy of English Heritage Trust.
Figure 29: Sir Henry de Vere Vane, 9th Baron Barnard ('Statesmen No.704'). Chromolithograph by George S. Fothergill, as depicted in Vanity Fair on 15th December 1898. Image © National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG D44939.
Figure 30: Visitors to the excavations at Wroxeter being shown finds, perhaps by one of Bushe-Fox's student diggers. Photo courtesy of English Heritage Trust
Accession number 88038026.
Figure 31: 'The City in the Corn' as photographed by Henry Lang Jones in 1913
an atmospheric frontispiece to Songs of a Buried City.
Figure 32: Wilfred Owen in 1912, the same year that Bushe-Fox's excavations at Wroxeter started. Wilfred Owen Literary Estate.
Figure 34: Bushe-Fox's excavation of the Temple, Site V, in 1913 (see Figure 103). All those visible are probably labourers rather than student excavators. After Bushe-Fox 1914, pl.IV, 1.
Figure 35: A 1952 watercolour by Edwin H. Judd of the fonts from Shrewsbury Abbey and Wroxeter. The latter is certainly from a large Roman column base. Image © Shrewsbury Museum Service SHYMS: FA.1994.09.
Figure 36: Mary Webb, in around 1920. After Coles, 1977 frontispiece.
Figure 37: The display of micaceous sandstone tiles outside the site museum at Wroxeter. Photographed on 25th June 1914 by Arthur Whinfield, President of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society from 1916. Image © Worcester Archives 832 BA 16072 2310.
Figure 38: The Wroxeter Mirror - one of the most beautiful, and least-known, finds from Roman Britain. Author's photo, October 2010.
Figure 39: Mytton's rather schematic view of the Old Work's north side, 1721. The wall depicted to the left is the wall opposite (south of) the Old Work. Image © Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections, University of Birmingham (XMYT The Mytton Pape
Figure 40: The south façade of Attingham Hall. Author's photo, August 1985.
Figure 41: Attingham Hall as viewed from under William Hayward's bridge over the river Tern, which was in place by 1780. Author's photo, May 2021.
Figure 42: A page in Repton's Red Book for Attingham Park showing the suggested spire added to St Andrews, Wroxeter. The Tern bridge and river is also prominent in the image. Attingham Collection. © National Trust.
Figure 43: Cronk Hill, designed by John Nash in c.1802. Now restored to its original stone-coloured finish. Author's photo, July 2020.
Figure 44: Thomas Girtin's watercolour of the Old Work at Wroxeter, 1798. Private collection.
Figure 45: Pearson's 1807 engraving of the Old Work, based on Girtin's view. Author's photo.
Figure 46: Revd. William's watercolour of the north side of the Old Work, 1788. Image © SA 6001/372/1/68.
Figure 47: Revd. William's watercolour of the south side of the Old Work, 1788. Image © SA 6001/372/1/67.
Figure 48: David Parkes' engraving of the south side of the Old Work with fanciful background. After Urban 1813. Author's photo.
Figure 49: Hartshorne's engraving of the Old Work, as published in Salopia Antiqua, 1841. Author's photo.
Figure 50: The Old Work viewed from the north-east. From this position the roof of The Cottage can be seen framed in the doorway, as is still the case today. Image © West Northamptonshire and Northampton Archives, HaC vol XXIV, Hartshorne p.95, 1838.
Figure 51: Hartshorne's atmospheric view of the south side of the Old Work from a point diagonally opposite that in Figure 50. Note the build up on this side of the Old Work, not otherwise visible in any other view. It suggests there was a substantial amo
Figure 52: The Old Work as depicted in the frontispiece for Wright's Uriconium (1872). It is very clear from the sheer detail in this image that this engraving is copied from a photograph taken during the excavation, as confirmed by the spoil heaps in the
Figure 53: Tom Prytherch painting outside Topsy Cottage. A posed image since this is a postcard, as shown by the label. Probably ca. 1910. Private collection.
Figure 54: 'Wroxeter from Severn Fields', a watercolour by Tom Prytherch painted in 1920. The blue building is Tom's studio. The Cottage, the house tenanted by the Everalls from 1888, is centre left. Private Collection.
Figure 55: Tom Prytherch in his studio. Behind his head, partly obscured by other pictures, is one of his large oil paintings of the ruins at Wroxeter. Private collection.