ROMAN VENTA: REVEALING THE PAST

n 1586, the antiquary William Camden wrote of 'Venta, a very ancient city..., whose name neither the rage of men nor time has yet extinguished'. As seen today, Caerwent is a small village, but there is much to remind the visitor of its Roman past. In Roman times it was a town of considerable significance, the largest centre of civilian population in Wales. The town bore the name Venta Silurum - 'market of the Silures'. It was the administrative centre and capital of the Silures, whose territories included the latter day counties of Brecknock, Glamorgan and Monmouthshire. Venta was sited on a slight rise in the middle of a broad open valley in an area of prime agricultural land, a little over 2 miles (3.2km) from the River Severn. It sat astride the main Roman road running from Gloucester (Glevum) to Caerleon (Isca) and beyond.


Apart from being listed in the Antonine Itinerary - a third-century road book listing principal routes and stopping places - and the Ravenna Cosmography - a seventh-century topographical list, based on much earlier information -Caerwent is not mentioned in Roman literature. Archaeologists have, therefore, had to dig up its remains to discover its history, what it looked like and how its inhabitants lived.


Numerous early topographical writers, from the fifteenth century onwards, described the appearance of Caerwent in their day and recorded various discoveries.		 Click for larger image
The first to leave an account of any substance was John Leland (writing about 1540), who described Caerwent as 'sum tyme a fair and a large cyte'. But by this time the ruins of any internal buildings had all but vanished - robbed to build new cottages.


During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Caerwent lay on the well-trodden route of tourists in search of the historical and picturesque in Wales. Among others, H. P. Wyndham, William Coxe, G. W. Manby, and Edward Donovan all recorded their impressions. Samuel Seyer, the Bristol historian, left a description of the grubbing-up of Roman walls for their limestone and its burning into lime, a fact all too clearly borne out by archaeological excavation. The interest of local people, however, was not aroused; there were no 'crop marks' from buried walling, and the few random discoveries led only to a pecuniary interest on the part of the villagers.


Both Manby (1802) and Donovan (1805) tell of the fate of a rich pavement found in 1777. At first, as Manby recorded, it had been preserved with vigilance by the landowner who had erected a building over it. The landowner's concern for the pavement was not to last, however, for when he chose to build a brewhouse he 'uncovered the edifice in order to save expense, and thus exposed it to vandalism and weather'. During his visit, Manby had to drive a sow and her piglets from the spot, where they had been rooting. Donovan later tried to save the remaining piece of scrollwork decoration by having a window-shutter laid over it.


In 1855, the first archaeological excavations of any significance were initiated by Octavius Morgan (1803-88), a notable antiquary and for many years Member of Parliament for Monmouthshire. Investigations in the south-east corner of the town (Insula XX), at the site of the mosaic unearthed in 1777, revealed part of a small bath-house together with another building. But this work was not followed up for many years.


The known ground plan of Venta (inside back cover) is largely the result of excavations which took place between 1899 and 1913. The work was instigated by the Clifton Antiquarian Club of Bristol, founded in 1884 to arrange meetings and excursions for the study of objects of archaeological interest in the west of England and south Wales. In 1899, after conducting successful trial explorations in the south-west corner of the town, the club agreed a scheme of work. A committee was formed (to be known as the 'Caerwent Exploration Fund') and Lord Tredegar (1831-1913), a local beneficiary, was elected as president. The excavations were to be funded by public subscription, but the response was generally poor, and the works had to be financed more and more from Lord Tredegar's own pocket.


The supervision of the excavations fell mainly to two members of the club: Alfred Hudd, a man of independent means and an excellent local antiquary, and Thomas Ashby (who was to become director of the British School at Rome). At that time, the recovery of the plan, the structural features and the function of each building investigated were the chief attainable ends, for archaeological techniques were still in their infancy. The normal procedure was to lay out parallel diagonal trenches across the site; any structure found was isolated and cleared to floor-level. In most cases, the excavators were content to explore only the uppermost Roman buildings, leaving untouched any earlier structures, especially those built of timber and clay, which they could scarcely recognize. By the time the excavations drew to a close in 1913, almost two-thirds of the town had been explored in a vast number of trenches. The resulting plan, however, was essentially that of the late Roman town, and very little light was thrown on the origins and early development of Venta. Many of the finds from these excavations are displayed in Newport Museum. The collection was given to Newport by the third Baron Tredegar in 1916.

 The periodic investigations carried Out since the conclusion of these large-scale explorations have generally been of a more limited nature. Within the town, part of the public baths was uncovered in 1923 and, during 1946 and 1947, excavations in an area next to Pound Lane revealed the foundations of shops and a large courtyard house (VII.26N and 27N) which were subsequently laid out for public inspection. The defences have also received attention over the years and there have been several investigations. The most extensive was carried out in 1925 on the south side of the town by V. E. Nash-Williams (1897-1955) of the National Museum of Wales. In 1973, excavations beyond the defences, just outside the east gate, were concerned with a substantial early medieval cemetery.



All this was done as opportunity offered. Fortunately, since the 1930s, judicious application of the Ancient Monuments and Town and Country Planning Acts has prevented any development, apart from very modest extensions, within the Roman defences. Hence, Caerwent presents one of the very few opportunities not only to investigate large areas of a Roman town, but also to display the remains of the excavated buildings to the public. In 1981, a new series of research excavations was initiated by the now National Museums & Galleries of Wales, a programme conducted jointly with Cadw: Welsh Historic Monuments from 1984 to 1995. The work has added immeasurably to our knowledge of Venta, especially of its origins and early development.



Three sites were investigated between 1981 and 1995: a large courtyard house in the north-west corner of the town (I.28N); the forum-basilica (VIII) at the very heart of the town; and the adjacent Romano-Celtic temple (IX). The recently completed work is gradually being consolidated and interpreted for long-term public display.

 
Excavations in 1981-84 on House I.28N recovered details of a number of mosaic floors, including this fine fourth-century example.