Durovigutum

Durovigutum stands where the Ermine Street crosses the Via Devana and a military road from Sandy, beside the Great Ouse in Cambridgeshire. The Romans built two forts here, one under Claudius and another under Nero, before turning the place into a town with a mansio and baths around AD 120. Archaeologists have found traces of earlier Celtic homes, so people have lived here for more than two thousand years. The name Durovigutum means ‘prosperous stronghold’, from the Celtic duro and the Latin vigere. In the third century the settlement was raided by Anglo-Saxons, and later a fire destroyed the mansio and baths. Excavations in Pinfold Lane uncovered four layers of Roman building, while a nearby temple yielded bronze votive offerings dedicated to the god Abandinus. Visitors walk along the line of Ermine Street, which once carried travellers north and south. On the west side of the lane stands the temple site, rebuilt several times between the second and fourth centuries. To the east lie the remains of a basilica built early in the third century. The town’s defences grew from a V-shaped ditch to a hexagonal rampart with walls three metres thick and an eleven-metre ditch.