Roman Architecture: Britain

The architecture of the Roman occupation of Britain (AD 43–around 410). Excluding primitive hut-dwellings, and such prehistoric monuments as Stonehenge and Maiden Castle, the oldest buildings in England were erected during this period. Features were similar to Roman architecture in other provinces of the Empire, being less ambitious and elaborate than those of the city of Rome.

Most examples are to be found in certain of the larger Roman towns: Camulodunum (Colchester), Verulamium (St Albans), Aquae Sulis (Bath), Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester), Viroconium (Wroxeter), and Isca Silurum (Caerwent). Other important towns such as Londinium (London), Eboracum (York), Ratae (Leicester), Lindum (Lincoln), Glevum (Gloucester), and Corinium (Cirencester) have yielded comparatively few remains; usually because later building has smothered or destroyed the Roman work, or because they have not yet been thoroughly excavated.

Public buildings were generally grouped round the forum or market-place, as at St Albans. Notable remains include the amphitheatre at Caerwent; the theatre at St Albans; secular basilicas at Cirencester, Silchester, Wroxeter, and Caerwent; the largest basilica north of the Alps, found under Gracechurch Street, London; and public baths, especially at Bath, but also at Leicester, Silchester, and Wroxeter. No temples remain above ground-level but foundations of a large construction have been found at Colchester, and there are numerous temples to the oriental deity Mithras, such as that in Walbrook, London. A fragment of a small basilican church at Silchester, dating from about 410, is the only surviving Christian church of the period.

Domestic town-houses are best studied at St Albans, where the streets form a chess-board pattern; the houses were centrally heated by hot air, equipped with baths, and provided with mosaic floors. Larger dwellings include palaces, such as Fishbourne near Chichester, and villas or country-houses from which farming was carried on, some of them having over 50 rooms. They are chiefly situated south and east of a line from York to Exeter, the best examples being at Bignor, Sussex; Brading, Isle of Wight; Chedworth, Gloucestershire; Folkestone, Kent; and Northleigh and Woodchester in Oxfordshire.

For English architecture of later periods, see Anglo-Saxon architecture and English architecture.