Bannaventa

Bannaventa was a small fortified Romano-British town on Watling Street, the first Roman road in Britain. It now lies beneath a private field beside the A5 in Northamptonshire, straddling the parishes of Norton and Whilton. The road itself once ran from Richborough in Kent to points in Wales, passing through many Roman towns. Bannaventa stood ten miles north-west of Towcester and seventeen miles south-east of Wigston Parva, a crossroads with Fosse Way. The town served as a staging post for travellers and merchants, offering food, shelter and fresh horses. A 2016 survey found traces of a mansio or mutatio where imperial couriers and officials could rest. In the late third century a smaller, more defensible enclosure was added inside the old walls, perhaps to guard against unrest. Nearby Borough Hill holds the remains of a Roman villa, and other villas, homesteads and a smaller settlement lie close by. Archaeologists have recovered Constantinian coins, Samian ware and wall plaster from the site. Aerial photographs in 1970 showed the town’s irregular square plan with rounded corners and three surrounding banks and ditches. A 2016–17 geophysical survey revealed an earlier, larger boundary enclosing eleven hectares. No visible ruins remain above ground today, yet the scheduled ancient monument preserves the outline of this once busy roadside town.