Heronbridge Roman Site

A major Roman settlement on Watling Street, 2 km south of Chester, England, continuously occupied from the late 1st century to at least 350 AD. The site features a large industrial complex with furnaces dating to c.100-160 AD, numerous stone buildings with hypocausts, and a quayside cut into bedrock along the River Dee. A red sandstone altar dedicated to the Mother Goddesses Ollototae was found among 2nd-century debris. About 19 human skeletons from the 1930-31 excavations show evidence of violent deaths, and a post-Roman mass grave may hold casualties from the Battle of Chester (c.611 AD). Geophysical surveys revealed the settlement extended nearly a kilometre in length.