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Silchester
Approached from Mortimer, in west Berkshire, the Roman ruins at Silchester are not easy to find. As you drive round and round in desperate ever decreasing circles looking for the remains of this capital of Roman Britain, you wonder how anything once so imposing could now be so hard to find. Then, suddenly, having fortuitously made the right turn, you are in Wall Lane. A mile or so further down the narrow winding road the wall itself appears, very impressive and still powerful almost 2000 years after it was constructed. This is the first visible sign of Calleva Atrebatum or the "town in the woods" of ancient Britain. It is astonishing.
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| Calleva Atrebatum was the capital of the Atrebates tribe when the Roman invasion of Britain was launched in 43AD. The invaders quickly took command and it became a strategic military and then trading town on the route between London, Winchester and the important port at Chichester. The Romans decided they needed a strong wall round the town and proceeded to construct this. Massive amounts of earth, rocks and mortar were brought into the area, some loads from as far away as Bath. It is estimated that it took ten long years of building before the defences were completed and the one and a half mile circular wall remains largely intact almost two thousand years later. It was an extraordinary feat. |
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The church is thought to have been built in the 12th century, approximately 600 years after the Romans abandoned Silchester to the elements for unknown reasons. Some of its walls may have been built with stone from the Roman walls surrounding it. The remains of a Roman temple are now buried under the present day church. Inside history is visible in the beautiful murals of flowers painted when this was a Catholic church. They were covered up during the reformation and then rediscovered and restored in recent times. The flowers are exquisite with simple patterns in reds and browns. They are now priceless treasures. The remains of what is believed to be the oldest church in Britain, and possibly the oldest urban church north of the Alps, were found near the Forum Basilica in the centre of the Roman town. The Forum is one of the buildings that can be clearly identified in crop patterns. The antiquity of this whole place is apparent. There are layers of visible and invisible history everywhere. There is another magical aspect to this place today. It is a haven for wildlife of many kinds. The ancient walls are a perfect backdrop for beautiful tiny blue butterflies that bask on grass stems near the walls as they and their ancestors before them must have done. In fact they are so striking that it is possible the Romans themselves might have noticed them! In the sky overhead it is common to see buzzards and the occasional hobby or kestrel. Yellowhammers and greenfinches inhabit the hedgerows and swifts nest in the eaves of the church and perhaps in holes in the Roman wall itself. This is truly a delightful place: a haven of ancient tranquillity in the midst of our hectic world.
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