The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

Roman Britain: civil and rural society
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Small’ towns
By contrast, the ‘small’ towns of Roman Britain were local market centres, lacking the formal
planning, public buildings and amenities, and the large houses of the wealthy. They ranged in size
from clusters of buildings little differentiated in form, or probably function, from those on rural
sites, up to major settlements comparable in extent with the ‘large’ towns (Burnham and Wacher
1990). Though more numerous than the ‘large’ towns, they have been the targets of less structured
excavation and research. Characteristically, they grew up along roads or at road junctions,
emphasizing the importance of communications for their commercial functions. Several also
contained installations of the cursus publicus (imperial communications) and many had temples,
some of which may have been the stimulus for the development of the settlement and suggest
that some ‘small’ towns may have acted as religious foci for sub-divisions (pagi) of the civitas. In
place of the public and the high-status buildings of the ‘large’ towns, the building-stock of the
‘small’ towns overwhelmingly consists of the shop/workshop type (Figure 9.4) already noted as
the commercial and artisan premises at the ‘large’ towns. The evidence for the manufacture and
distribution of imported and locally produced pottery and other artefact types out into the
surrounding rural sites confirms the ‘small’ towns’ role as market and trading centres.
The only commonly occurring public structures were defences, initially an earthwork and later
replaced in stone like those at the ‘large’ towns. Unlike at the ‘large’ towns, these defences made no
attempt to enclose the entire inhabited zone, leaving large extra-mural areas. Many ‘small’ towns
had ordered cemeteries, but burials are also encountered close to and amongst the houses of the
Figure 9.4 Plan of a ‘small’ town at Water Newton, Cambridgeshire, showing the defended nucleus, intramural
building types, extra-mural occupation, and pottery kilns.
Source: Burnham and Wacher 1990