Silchester

Silchester , village, Hampshire, S England. It is noted for the ruins of the Roman-British town Calleva Atrebatum. The outside walls (2,760 yd/2,524 m in circumference), forum, amphitheater, and entire plan of the city, including baths and several temples, were revealed through excavations beginning in the 1890s. Small articles were removed to Reading Museum.

Silchester a modern village in Hampshire, situated to the south-west of Reading, near which is the site of an important town of pre-Roman and Roman Britain, known to the Romans as Calleva Atrebatum. The site was abandoned at the end of the Roman period, and recent excavations suggest it may have been ritually cursed.

Silchester was a Romano‐British civitas‐capital of the Atrebates on the present Hampshire–Berkshire border. Development after the invasion was swift, with street‐grid, large central timber structures, and possibly the baths. At the centre was the stone‐built, Hadrianic forum. Other public buildings included an amphitheatre and temples. Objects indicate occupation into the 5th cent., but thereafter the site was deserted.