Venta Icenorum

Venta Icenorum was the capital of the Iceni tribe in what is now Norfolk. The town stood on flat farmland near the River Tas, south of modern Norwich. It was built in the 2nd century as a Roman administrative centre and market. The site lies close to a Bronze Age henge at Arminghall. Aerial photographs in 1928 first revealed the buried layout of its streets and walls. Archaeologists led by Donald Atkinson excavated the site in the 1930s. Later work by the University of Nottingham showed it was a new Roman town, not built over an earlier Iceni settlement. Finds suggest local farmers slowly adopted Roman ways. The remaining earthworks still mark the town’s boundaries. The Norfolk Archaeological Trust now cares for the ruins beside the river. Visitors walk along grassy embankments that once held the town’s defences. The low mounds outline streets and building plots. Across the river, extra land was added to the site in 2011. The quiet fields hold no grand ruins, yet the shape of the past is clear. The river Tas flows past the western edge of the old town.