Great Casterton

Roman fort established c. 44 AD on the north bank of the River Gwash during the Claudian campaigns, guarding the crossing of Ermine Street. The 6-acre fort housed auxiliary cavalry and spawned a civilian vicus that grew into an 18-acre walled town with defensive earthworks upgraded in the 4th century. Excavations revealed a mansio bath building, pottery kilns, and a Roman-Saxon burial ground. A notable 2015 discovery of a skeleton with locked iron ankle fetters provided rare evidence of slavery in Roman Britain. The town and a nearby villa remained occupied into the 5th century AD.