Western Rampart of Roman Venta Icenorum

Here is the view from across the River Tas, looking at the ramparts of the Roman Civitas capital of the Iceni - Venta Icenorum.

Venta is believed to have been established following the pacification phase after the defeat of Quenn Boudicca of the Iceni, sometime in the 70s or 80s AD. There may be a Roman fort of the first and second occupation periods under the Roman town.

It was never an emormously successful Roman town like the most of the other Civitas capitals, Winchester, Canterbury, Leicester, Wroxeter etc. Unlike them when Roman central rule collapsed in the 5th Century it was unoccupied.

The reasons for this are not clear, but the ferocity of the post-Boudiccan Roman Army occupation may explain part of this, as might the possibility that the Western part of the Iceni were incorporated into or possibly enslaved on an Imperial Estate in the Fens.

Excavation in the 30s were unpublished, but my Father remembered the stir they created locally and nationally. Gradually now excavations are bringing back the road pattern.

There are areas where the Roman Town Wall exists up to several courses high, and along the River here there is evidence of boats unloading their cargoes. In the Roman era and on the assumption based on the situation of Burgh Castle and Caiator-by-Yarmouth Roman forts, the river levels would have been substantially higher than at present, thus allowing large vessels to come up the wide Yare Estuary to Venta.