Margidunum

Margidunum was a Roman settlement on the Fosse Way at Castle Hill near present-day Bingham, in Nottinghamshire [1]. The Antonine Itinerary, a 2nd-century Roman register of places and roads, locates Margidunum as MARGIDVNO midway between Ratae (Leicester) and Lindum (Lincoln) on the Fosse Way [1]. Finds of military equipment established that it was initially a military post in about 55–60 AD, although no parts of a fort structure have been found [1]. A civilian settlement then developed in about 70–80 AD on either side of the Fosse Way, indicated by several simple rectangular buildings along about a 1 km stretch of the road [1]. Excavations were conducted by Nottingham University in the 1920s by Felix Oswald, and again in the 1960s by Malcolm Todd [1]. Oswald found prehistoric artefacts including a Bronze Age flint arrowhead, polished stone axes and bronze socketed celts [1]. The 20th-century excavations discovered the stone walls and stone slab floors or beaten clay floors of over 20 Roman buildings at the site [1].