All Round the Wrekin - The Hillfort

Romanisation

The Wrekin's tenure as a functioning hillfort appears to have ended in the Spring of AD 47, when Legio XIV Gemina of the Roman Army reached the area, during their attempt to invade the entirety of Great Britain. In the 1990s, a used Roman javelin head of the kind used in frontal assaults on hillforts was discovered in Heaven's Gate, but this find is not necessarily evidence of a pitch battle with the Cornovii. The attack on The Wrekin may have been a symbolic display of Roman military power and the tribe could have viewed the Roman invasion as a potential trading opportunity and a source of greater security. It is likely the former population of the hillfort migrated to the Roman fortress at Wroxeter, which later became known as Viroconium-Cornoviorum (Viroconium of the Cornovii) a name that may have been transferred from The Wrekin hillfort itself. The town was founded around 90 AD on the site of the fortress, after the Roman Army had left for their new base at Deva (Chester). As a consequence, military control of the area effectively ceased and the Cornovii were left to administer their affairs again.