Silchester 

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Historical notes about the Parish of Silchester

Silchester

No one can seriously object if this review of the scenes and sights of Hampshire begins with the remains of its Roman city, Calleva Atrebatum, more familiarly known as Silchester. It is true that there is remarkably little to see (for in these ungenial climes it appears to be the practice of excavators promptly to cover up everything they find, and small blame to them in the circumstances!), and the mutilated walls, pavements, and sketchy foundations which represent the ancient Romano-British city are not particularly inspiring to those not endowed with the antiquary's gift for reconstructing vanished cities and repeopling the solitudes. Still, Silchester is anything but a miscellaneous assemblage of remnants, and unimaginative indeed is he who can gaze on this memorial of the majesty of Rome and remain unmoved.

The excavations that have taken place, spasmodically at first and scientifically during the last thirty years or so, have revealed the ground-plan of a city which did not differ, except in the matter of shape, from the Roman cities of Italy. The familiar features appear: rectangular blocks of houses divided by intersecting streets; baths, forum, basilica, temples, and amphitheatre; gates at the four cardinal points. The variations from the standard pattern of Roman city appear to be due to the fact that the walls coincided with the contour of ancient British earthworks. "Everything for use" and "Waste not, want not" were maxims deeply implanted in the minds of history's greatest imperialists. But, as has been said, the turf hides almost the whole of the site, and the ordinary visitor has to visualise Calleva Atrebatum from its circuit of walls, a fragment of pavement, and the extremely interesting collection of miscellaneous "finds" - domestic object, pottery and the like - now deposited in Reading Museum and elsewhere.

10 m north of Basingstoke.

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Hotels, Apartments and B&B's in Silchester

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