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AbstractThe evidence of the character and purpose of settlements previously described as defended ‘small towns’ is reviewed in the light of knowledge accrued since the implementation of Planning Policy Guidance 16 in 1990, the same year as the publication of Burnham and Wacher's survey, The ‘Small Towns’ of Roman Britain. This review focuses on four of the more extensively excavated settlements: Alcester, Cambridge, Godmanchester and Worcester. In the absence of convincing urban attributes, it is suggested that this category of settlement should more appropriately be regarded as defended villages (vici). These cluster in and around the West Anglian plain and on Ermine Street, suggesting a strategic function to protect grain and other food supplies and their movement, potentially either to the northern frontier or south to London and, perhaps, export to the Continent.

ABSTRACTThe evidence for a major, post-Boudiccan Neronian building campaign in Calleva is set out and discussed and its wider context considered. It is suggested that there was deliberate investment in the civil development of the client kingdom south of the Thames in contrast to the re-establishment of direct military control to the north and in East Anglia where revival of the towns was slow to take off.

In the course of the excavations at Silchester in 1907 remains of a Romano-Celtic temple were discovered in Insula XXXV in the south-east quarter of the Roman city (FIGS 1?2). The building, like many others in the town (including two further temples in Insula XXX beneath the present churchyard), was not set square to the street grid, but its main axis was aligned some 13 degrees north-east?south-west from the east?west street.