Viroconium Cornoviorum

Viroconium Cornoviorum was a Roman city whose remains lie near Wroxeter, a small village in Shropshire about eight kilometres east-south-east of Shrewsbury. At its height it was the fourth-largest Roman settlement in Britain, with more than fifteen thousand people living in a planned town covering more than seventy hectares. The site includes substantial ruins still looked after by English Heritage, together with a small museum and a reconstructed Roman house. The city began as a frontier post for Thracian auxiliary troops before becoming a legionary fortress under Legio XIV Gemina. After the legion moved north, the civilian settlement grew into a town with a forum, baths, temples and shops. Roman historians such as Ptolemy and Suetonius mention the place, and archaeologists have found evidence of its wealth and organisation. Visitors walk among the remains of the baths complex and the largest free-standing Roman ruin in England, known as the Old Work. A small museum displays finds from the site, and a reconstructed Roman villa shows how people once lived. The surrounding fields still conceal buried buildings mapped by geophysical survey, while recent excavations uncovered a two-thousand-year-old mosaic of dolphins and fish.