Ad Pontem

Ad Pontem was a Roman settlement beside the River Trent near the present village of Thorpe, south of Newark-on-Trent in the East Midlands. It stood on the Fosse Way, the road linking Leicester to Lincoln, and its name in the Antonine Itinerary points to a bridge that once crossed the Trent just west of the site. Excavations show a Celtic village stood here first, and Roman military remains from the time of Claudius and Nero mark the start of organised occupation. By Flavian times the fort had gone and a civilian settlement of wooden buildings lined the road. In the 2nd century a stone wall was built around the growing town. Archaeologists have found traces of painted wall plaster and a stone structure that may have been a mansio, a stopping place for officials and travellers. The town endured for two hundred years, its people living and working along the road until the 4th century. Aerial photographs still reveal faint lines of former streets and buildings beneath the fields. A few small finds like brooches and coins have been recovered, but most of the site remains undisturbed under grass. Visitors today walk quiet farm tracks beside the Trent and look across to the fields where Ad Pontem once stood. The land is flat and open, giving long views along the river valley. There are no standing ruins, but interpretation boards explain what once happened here. The spot is peaceful, with only the sound of water and birds, yet it holds the memory of a busy Roman town that controlled the crossing for centuries.