Excavations at Alchester: a Legionary Fortress and Roman to Early Medieval Town

Excavations at the Roman town of Alchester near Oxford revealed Britain’s earliest dated Roman timbers, the remains of a major military base and a tombstone of a veteran of the Second Augustan Legion. Was it here that the legion and its famous commander, the later emperor Vespasian, were based? Work on the numerous finds have shed much new light on the Roman invasion, the origins of Oxfordshire’s largest Roman town, its later town walls and its occupation into the Early Middle Ages.