Wroxeter: Ashes Under Uricon; a Cultural and Social History of the Roman City

Cover
Title Page
Copyright information
Contents
List of Figures
	Figure 1: The author, photographed in the office at Wroxeter by Graham Webster’s wife, Diana Bonakis Webster, in 1987 at the start of the writing up process.
	Figure 2: A visit by Eaton Constantine school to Wroxeter in July 1959. The custodian, Alf Crow, is explaining the site. For most of these children, this may well have been their first, and last, experience of the site. Image © Shropshire Archives (SA) 31
	Figure 3: Wroxeter and its landscape viewed by air from the north. The arc of the northern rampart is apparent, as are the consolidated ruins at the centre of the site. The village is centre right. The River Severn is prominent, and the now demolished pin
	Figure 4: Thomas Wright in a studio portrait by Ernest Edwards of Baker Street, London, 1866.
	Figure 5: Illustrated London News engraving of the excavations in April 1859; the original would have been monochrome. Author’s photo, 2019.
	Figure 6: Donald Atkinson, by L. Haffer, 1946. Courtesy of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. Photo by the author, October 2021.
	Figure 7: The western part of the Forum Inscription as first uncovered, shattered on the street below the entrance. After Atkinson 1942, pl.44B.
	Figure 8: The Wroxeter Forum Inscription, as displayed at Rowley’s House, Shrewsbury in the 1990s following its restoration. The paler areas are plaster – about 75% of the original inscription survives – but the restored letters can be confidently provide
	Figure 9: Details of some of the letters in the inscription showing original tooling marks and stylistic details. Author’s photos, August 2020.
	Figure 10: David Kyndersley’s and Lida Lopez Cardoza’s artistic response to the Wroxeter Inscription. Author’s photo 2013.
	Figure 11: Eric Gill’s Golden Cockerel font, 1929, based on the lettering in Wroxeter’s forum inscription. Image courtesy of Mike Ashworth.
	Figure 12: Graham Webster, in around 1948 when he was appointed as Curator at the Grosvenor Museum, Chester. Photo courtesy of Diana Bonakis Webster.
	Figure 13: Mike Corbishley (l) and Phil Barker (r) celebrating the end of the baths basilica excavation in August 1985. Author’s photo.
	Figure 14: The baths basilica excavation July 1971 – ploughsoil is being removed by a trowelling line of diggers to reveal the underlying surface.  Note that the fields beyond the site are still under cultivation. Photo by Phil Barker.
	Figure 15: The Wrekin from near Cressage in a watercolour by Tom Prytherch, 1902. Image © Raby Estates 2020.
	Figure 16: A map of the post-Roman kingdoms of England and Wales in the seventh – ninth century. Not all of these polities were extant at the same time. After Hill 1981, fig. 41 and Ray & Bapty 2016, fig. 1.1. Drawing by Sophie Lamb.
	Figure 17: Offa’s Dyke on Llanfair hill, north of Knighton. Author’s photo, December 1994.
	Figure 18: The Pillar of Eliseg, near Llangollen, a ninth century monument commemorating the kings of Powys. Photo by Theo Bumpus, August 2020.
	Figure 19: The Wem Hoard, a recent discovery of hacksilver including many coins (right) some of which have been cut into halves and quarters. It dates to the latter half of the fifth century. Author’s photo, November 2018.
	Figure 20: Regularly sized platforms on the south aisle which indicate timber buildings put up in the shell of the basilica. Photo Philip Barker, August 1974.
	Figure 21: The tombstone of Cunorix, an Irishman buried at Wroxeter around AD500. The inscription is cut into a broken Roman tombstone. Author’s photo, August 2011.
	Figure 22: Lead pans for boiling brine to extract salt. Found at Shavington, Cheshire the inscriptions commemorate late Roman clerics presumably based at either Chester or Wroxeter. After Penney and Shotter 1996 and 2000.
	Figure 23: A plan of the baths at Wroxeter with a plot showing the approximate location of burials mentioned by Thomas Wright. These cluster around the frigidarium, which may have become a chapel in the immediate post-Roman period. After Ellis 2000 with a
	Figure 24: The post-Roman British defended coastal site at Degannwy, by Llandudno. This lay roughly on the border between Powys and Gwynedd. Its small size, and defensive qualities offer a stark contrast to the defensive situation at a place like Wroxeter
	Figure 25: The proposed reconstruction of Wroxeter’s territory in the Roman period, fossilised in the medieval diocesan boundary between Hereford and Lichfield. After Barker et al. 1997, fig.327.
	Figure 26: A.E. Housman, by Francis Dodd. Image © National Portrait Gallery, London, 1926 NPG 3075.
	Figure 27: The wooded scarp of Wenlock Edge, looking west. Author’s photo, August 1993.
	Figure 28: J.P. Bushe-Fox, Inspector of Ancient Monuments and an important innovator in Romano-British studies. Image courtesy of English Heritage Trust.
	Figure 29: Sir Henry de Vere Vane, 9th Baron Barnard (‘Statesmen No.704’). Chromolithograph by George S. Fothergill, as depicted in Vanity Fair on 15th December 1898. Image © National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG D44939.
	Figure 30: Visitors to the excavations at Wroxeter being shown finds, perhaps by one of Bushe-Fox’s student diggers. Photo courtesy of English Heritage Trust; Accession number 88038026.
	Figure 31: ‘The City in the Corn’ as photographed by Henry Lang Jones in 1913; an atmospheric frontispiece to Songs of a Buried City.
	Figure 32: Wilfred Owen in 1912, the same year that Bushe-Fox’s excavations at Wroxeter started. Wilfred Owen Literary Estate.
	Figure 34: Bushe-Fox’s excavation of the Temple, Site V, in 1913 (see Figure 103). All those visible are probably labourers rather than student excavators. After Bushe-Fox 1914, pl.IV, 1.
	Figure 35: A 1952 watercolour by Edwin H. Judd of the fonts from Shrewsbury Abbey and Wroxeter. The latter is certainly from a large Roman column base. Image © Shrewsbury Museum Service SHYMS: FA.1994.09.
	Figure 36: Mary Webb, in around 1920. After Coles, 1977 frontispiece.
	Figure 37: The display of micaceous sandstone tiles outside the site museum at Wroxeter. Photographed on 25th June 1914 by Arthur Whinfield, President of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society from 1916.  Image © Worcester Archives 832 BA 16072 2310.
	Figure 38: The Wroxeter Mirror – one of the most beautiful, and least-known, finds from Roman Britain. Author’s photo, October 2010.
	Figure 39: Mytton’s rather schematic view of the Old Work’s north side, 1721. The wall depicted to the left is the wall opposite (south of) the Old Work. Image © Cadbury Research Library: Special Collections, University of Birmingham (XMYT The Mytton Pape
	Figure 40: The south façade of Attingham Hall. Author’s photo, August 1985.
	Figure 41: Attingham Hall as viewed from under William Hayward’s bridge over the river Tern, which was in place by 1780. Author’s photo, May 2021.
	Figure 42: A page in Repton’s Red Book for Attingham Park showing the suggested spire added to St Andrews, Wroxeter. The Tern bridge and river is also prominent in the image. Attingham Collection. © National Trust.
	Figure 43: Cronk Hill, designed by John Nash in c.1802. Now restored to its original stone-coloured finish. Author’s photo, July 2020.
	Figure 44: Thomas Girtin’s watercolour of the Old Work at Wroxeter, 1798. Private collection.
	Figure 45: Pearson’s 1807 engraving of the Old Work, based on Girtin’s view. Author’s photo.
	Figure 46: Revd. William’s watercolour of the north side of the Old Work, 1788. Image © SA 6001/372/1/68.
	Figure 47: Revd. William’s watercolour of the south side of the Old Work, 1788. Image © SA 6001/372/1/67.
	Figure 48: David Parkes’ engraving of the south side of the Old Work with fanciful background. After Urban 1813. Author’s photo.
	Figure 49: Hartshorne’s engraving of the Old Work, as published in Salopia Antiqua, 1841. Author’s photo.
	Figure 50: The Old Work viewed from the north-east. From this position the roof of The Cottage can be seen framed in the doorway, as is still the case today. Image © West Northamptonshire and Northampton Archives, HaC vol XXIV, Hartshorne p.95, 1838.
	Figure 51: Hartshorne’s atmospheric view of the south side of the Old Work from a point diagonally opposite that in Figure 50. Note the build up on this side of the Old Work, not otherwise visible in any other view. It suggests there was a substantial amo
	Figure 52: The Old Work as depicted in the frontispiece for Wright’s Uriconium (1872). It is very clear from the sheer detail in this image that this engraving is copied from a photograph taken during the excavation, as confirmed by the spoil heaps in the
	Figure 53: Tom Prytherch painting outside Topsy Cottage. A posed image since this is a postcard, as shown by the label. Probably ca. 1910. Private collection.
	Figure 54: ‘Wroxeter from Severn Fields’, a watercolour by Tom Prytherch painted in 1920. The blue building is Tom’s studio. The Cottage, the house tenanted by the Everalls from 1888, is centre left. Private Collection.
	Figure 55: Tom Prytherch in his studio. Behind his head, partly obscured by other pictures, is one of his large oil paintings of the ruins at Wroxeter. Private collection.
	Figure 56: The alabaster tombs of, on the left, Sir Thomas Bromley and his wife, and right Sir Richard Newport and his wife, St Andrew’s Wroxeter. Painted by Tom Prytherch for the 9th Lord Barnard. Image ©Raby Estates 2020.
	Figure 57: ‘The Old Work and Ruins’ by Tom Prytherch, ca. 1908. Photograph by the author courtesy of English Heritage Trust Acc. No. 88070008.
	Figure 58: A postcard version of ‘The Old Work and Ruins’ with added details. It is not known where the original now is or even if it still exists. The signature and date (1908) are in the right-hand corner. Image © SA PH/W38/3/13.
	Figure 59: ‘The Fall of Uriconium’ by Tom Prytherch, date unknown. Photograph by the author courtesy of English Heritage Trust Acc. No. 88070007.
	Figure 60: Wroxeter Churchyard Gates and Topsy Cottage. A clear inspiration for the gateway seen in the Fall of Uriconium. Watercolour dated 1900 by Tom Prytherch. Private Collection.
	Figure 61: Alfred Hulme’s ‘Fugitives sheltering in the Hypocaust’, 1909. Image © Shrewsbury Museums Service SHYMS: FA.1991.197.
	Figure 62: A late 19th century photograph of the room where the old man in the hypocaust and his two companions were found. This image shows how accurate Hulme’s painting was in relation to the site. Image © SA PH/W/38/3/7.
	Figure 63: Forestier’s view of the forum entrance from the Illustrated London News, 1925. Author’s photo.
	Figure 64: The view of the bustling street between the Forum and public baths by Forestier published in the Illustrated London News, 1925. Author’s photo.
	Figure 65: Ivan Lapper’s reconstruction of the whole of Wroxeter Roman City, viewed as from the north. Comparing the two images will show the addition of a cattle market (the rectangular area on the left) and the area of pitting (brown patch with smoke on
	Figure 66: Three versions of the interior of the baths basilica dating from the 1990s to 2012. The largely monochrome version is the first. This was corrected by the red version, which more accurately displays the mosaics, but compresses the height of the
	Figure 67: The panel interpreting the hot rooms of the baths from the viewing platform showing how the panels aid understanding of the ruins in the background. Details, such as the ceiling decoration, are based on discoveries made on site. Author’s image,
	Figure 68: One of the landscape panels, this one looking to the south-west. Painting by Ivan Lapper, as displayed on site. Author’s image, August 2003.
	Figure 69: Ivan Lapper’s view of the Forum – as colourful a scene as that by Forestier. Image © Historic England Archive (IC118/013).
	Figure 70: Alan Sorrell’s 1973 reconstruction of the baths complex.  Image © Shrewsbury Museums Service SHYMS: 2013.00123.
	Figure 71: Alan Sorrell’s view of Wroxeter. This view to the south-west echoes that of Corbet Anderson more than a century before. Image © Shrewsbury Museums Service SHYMS: 2013.00124.
	Figure 72: The reconstructed town house at Wroxeter, based on Bushe-Fox’s Site VI. It has proved popular with the general public, despite its design flaws and academic inaccuracies. Author’s photo May 2012.
	Figure 73: An iconic cover of the first edition of Dawn Wind, by Charles Keeping, 1961. Wikipedia Commons.
	Figure 74: A collapsing farm building at Muckley Cross, between Much Wenlock and Morville in Shropshire. It is plain that the building will eventually form a heap which will then become a grass-covered mound. Author’s photo, February 2012.
	Figure 75: The ‘worm stone’ at Down House, Kent, Darwin’s home but also his laboratory. Author’s photo, April 2011.
	Figure 76: Charles Roach Smith, the London chemist who was one of the leading archaeologists of his day. Author’s image.
	Figure 77: A medallion struck in honour of Charles Roach Smith’s efforts to preserve the Roman town wall of Dax in France. Image © Shrewsbury Museums Service SHYMS: 2022.00009.
	Figure 78: Francis Bedford’s 1859 photograph of the western hypocaust, as reconstructed by Henry Johnson following its unfortunate encounter with the Cannock Miners. Image source Wikipedia Commons.
	Figure 79: The pen and watercolour drawing made by George Maw in April / May 1859 of the remnants of the mosaics in the north aisle of the baths basilica and the herringbone tile floor in the baths. Image © Shropshire Museums Service SHYMS: 2022.00005.
	Figure 80: A fragment of a floor laid out using mosaic tiles from Maw’s factory at Benthall, Shropshire. This is clearly following the suggested layout in Maw’s catalogue (right). Photos courtesy of and © Hans van Lemmen.
	Figure 81: F.W. Fairholt’s etching of a visit to Wroxeter in 1859. An attentive gentleman points to where the Old Man was found while a labourer carries on in the background. Author’s image.
	Figure 82: John Groom’s 1862 photo of the Bell Tent set up as a refreshment point among the spoil heaps. The house behind is 1 & 2 The Ruins, then a freshly built pair of tenant’s houses. Next to it are the Wroxeter farm buildings. Image © SA PH/W/38/3/39
	Figure 83: The enameller’s workshop as recorded in a stereophotograph in 1859. The column and furnace mentioned are evident, as is one of the spoil heaps. The table is the square block of masonry. It is actually the foundation for a support for the vaulte
	Figure 84: John Corbet Anderson’s view of the south Shropshire Hills from the highest point of the town, north of the Old Work (visible to the right). Caer Caradoc is the right of the two conical hills, the other being the Lawley. Long Mynd is on the righ
	Figure 85: The base of the tombstone found in 1861, as drawn by Hillary Davies, the talented illustrator who recorded many of the finds from Wright’s excavations. Image © SA: PR/2/551.
	Figure 86: The largest of the spoil heaps at Wroxeter. The wall in the foreground is that of the macellum while behind it is the Old Work, with the Wrekin visible behind the tree. This photograph is a rare record of the mound. Photo perhaps by Francis Hav
	Figure 87: Melancholic views of the site in the early 20th century. It is not surprising people wrote gloomy poems about the site. One view is from the museum entrance. The random stones are part of the site lapidarium – stray architectural elements encou
	Figure 88: A late 19th century view taken from a position similar to that adopted by Francis Bedford in 1859 (see Figure 78). Note the deterioration of the walls and hypocaust in just a few decades. Image © SA: PH/W/38/3/22.
	Figure 89: Percy W. Taylor’s previously unpublished 1931 plan of the baths site at Wroxeter. Intended for the new site guide by John Morris it was not used in that publication. The mounds are prominent, and their height can be judged by the profiles below
	Figure 90: The forum excavations in 1924, around the time Henry Morton visited. The view is dominated by the tipped light-railway hopper showing a mechanised approach to getting the spoil off the site. Workmen can be seen in the trench beyond the railway
	Figure 91: One of the Aerofilms views of the site in 1929. The heaps are prominent on the site while in the foreground are some visitors and the pale stones of the now relocated site lapidarium. In front of them lies the newly exposed forum colonnade. A s
	Figure 92: Francis Jackson (right) with his friend Charles Vernon Everall, Wroxeter’s tenant farmer, and ‘Catch of the Season’, a salmon caught in the Severn below the house in the 1920s. The building is the still-extant summer house outside the Cottage a
	Figure 93: Kathleen Kenyon at Wroxeter in July 1937. She is probably consulting the map to decide where to place the sections she dug across the defences. If so, she is very likely standing close to the junction of the Norton Road and the Horseshoe Lane,
	Figure 94: An aerial photograph of Wroxeter showing the ruins with, in the foreground, the cropmarks of a Roman town house, site of Kenyon and Webster’s excavations in 1952 and ‘53. The white rectangles are the concrete bases of World War 2 huts. Image ©
	Figure 95: The iron column needlessly supporting the Old Work at the turn of the 20th century. Image © SA, Mallinson 607 PH/W/38/3/31. For the ugly concrete post doing the same job, see Figure 98.
	Figure 96: Graham Webster, surveying in obviously inclement summer weather in September 1952. His Vespa is nowhere in sight. Author’s collection (ex Wyatt scrapbook).
	Figure 97: The Priory schoolchildren at Wroxeter, 1952. Top: a posed photo taken for the Shrewsbury Chronicle showing the Priory boys surveying. Gareth Wyn Jones is second from the right. Middle: The human pyramid – Peter Reynolds is bottom row, centre. B
	Figure 98: The Manchester Guardian photographer’s view of the freshly consolidated ruins at Wroxeter in September 1952. The impact of the Ministry of Works is already apparent. Author’s collection (ex Wyatt scrapbook).
	Figure 99: The Wyatts excavating at Wroxeter. Their digging attire is notably formal, even for the time. The Priory schoolboy behind them gives a more accurate idea of what the new generation of diggers usually wore. Author’s collection (ex Wyatt scrapboo
	Figure 100: A view of the custodian’s house (with the chimney), the site museum behind it, and the entrance booth taken in the late 1950s, as indicated by the freshly consolidated ruins to the right and the poplars by the colonnade which have rapidly grow
	Figure 101: Philip Barker (second from right) with University of Birmingham Extra Mural colleague Stan Stanford (extreme left) and Shropshire associates, including Ernie Jenks (extreme right). Taken during the Smethcott Castle excavation, 1956-8. Image co
	Figure 102: Arnold Baker, standing beside his RAF surplus DH82a Tiger Moth and Series 1 Land Rover in the 1950s. Photographer and date unknown; image from Baker 1992.
	Figure 103: A classic Arnold Baker oblique, taken in 1975 (SJ563083-201). The house on the left is The Cottage while the baths site is just visible in the top right corner. The triangular field filled with cropmarks are the buildings excavated 1912-14 by
	Figure 104: A photo by Jim Pickering of the excavations underway in 1964. The box-trenches dug by Graham Webster are evident, as are the partly consolidated ruins of the site with the Old Work under scaffold. The modern huts on the left are those provided
	Figure 105: A view of diggers on Graham’s site at Wroxeter in 1964 or 5. Among them must be prisoners from HMP Drake Hall, hence the presence of a Warder (centre). Photograph by Sheila Broomfield in Author’s collection.
	Figure 106: The University of Birmingham brochure produced to commemorate the opening of the Sir Charles Foyle Centre at Wroxeter, and the Field Studies Centre at Preston Montford, Shrewsbury. Author’s collection.
	Figure 107: A view by Charles Daniels, one of Graham Webster’s supervisors, of the trying conditions of the 1966 excavation in the piscina area. Note the propped-up walls and shoring holding back the spoil. Charles Daniels archive.
	Figure 108: A photograph by Charles Daniels of the main praefurnium of the baths as first uncovered in 1967, and its consolidated state today. While the work is radical in its impact, it was also necessary in that the poor state of the masonry in the uppe
	Figure 109: The traditional group photo of the excavation team for the Baths Basilica site in 1984 with, in the left centre, Prince Edward (above the X). To his left is his tutor, Dr Kate Pretty, Deputy Director of the site. Many of the others present ret
	Figure 110: The Macellum excavation in 1975. The custodian’s house, site museum and poplars have gone. The team are focused on the remains in the herringbone-tiled courtyard. The two men at the back, in hats, are Tim Strickland, Graham’s senior site super
	Figure 111: The plan for a new Wroxeter, as envisaged in the 1976 DoE feasability study. It was never agreed or implemented and will never be realised in this format. Note the new (and improbable) line for the B4380 Shrewsbury to Ironbridge road curving a
	Figure 112: Mal, one of the Directly Employed Labour force, constructing one of the missing walls of the macellum on a foundation of crushed stone in May 1989. The stone has been retrieved from the site stone heap kept for just this purpose. Author’s phot
	Figure 113: The spectacular steel-and-glass baths cover building at Xanten, Germany. A replica in modern materials of the Roman town bathhouse whose plan is very similar to that at Wroxeter. This image captures the building before the museum was added to
	Figure 114: The work of the Wroxeter Hinterland project, clockwise from top left. Volunteers carrying out the resistivity survey; Bessie White (my mum), Jenny Smith, and Jon Guite potwashing in the kitchen of No.2 The Ruins; Corvedale Schoolchildren field
	Figure 115: Cropmarks of the roads at Wroxeter appearing in the field south of the baths in a drought year. These marks are in the same location seen by Bushe-Fox in 1912. The grass in shallow soil above the road surface has dried out quicker than the gra
	Figure 116: The full-face portrait coin of Carausius as illustrated in Corbet Anderson’s book on Uriconium in 1867. Author’s image.
	Figure 117: The north wall of Wroxeter St Andrews. The large stones in the centre of the wall form the surviving wall of an Anglo-Saxon church. A small rounded-headed blocked window can also be made out between the two larger (and clearly later) windows.
	Figure 118: The stone screen erected from Roman fragments in garden of The Grange probably sometime in the late 19th century. Author’s photo, August 2010.
	Figure 119: A massive piece of Roman masonry in the wall of the drive way of The Grange, next to St Andrews. Its upper surface is composed of in situ facing stones which will have been the face of the wall. The thickness of this piece is thus around a met
	Figure 120: Wroxeter farm shippen yard wall, inside the building. The course of massive masonry lies at exterior ground level so the wall depth below gives the amount of soil removed to create the yard. Virtually all of this stone is Roman. After White an
	Figure 121: One of the square stone bases imaginatively repurposed as a plant holder by Stanier. It was found when excavating the shippen yard of Wroxeter farm in 1854. Author’s photo, June 1995.
	Figure 122: John Lyster’s drawing of the bath house found, and dismantled for its stone, in 1701. The first record of a Roman building in Wroxeter. After Lyster, 1706.
	Figure 123: Thomas Telford’s handsome isometric perspective engraving of the bath house uncovered at Wroxeter. After Rickman, 1838, pl.10.
	Figure 124: A hand-coloured lithograph of the mosaic found in the garden of a villager in Wroxeter in 1827. There is a letter from Thomas Wright pasted onto it to confirm its authenticity as a record of the mosaic. (Photo courtesy of Debbie Klemperer, for
	Figure 125: The tombstone of Tirintinus, as once displayed in the Rowley’s House Museum, Shrewsbury (now in the Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery). Author’s photo, March 1993.
	Figure 126: Three Wroxeter tombstones as depicted in the original publication by John Ward. That in the middle is of Placida and Deuccus. Author’s image.
	Figure 127: Alan Duncan’s imaginative reconstruction of Agricola leaving Wroxeter’s fortress at the head of the 20th Legion on his campaign in Wales, AD 78. Image © Shropshire Museum Service.
	Figure 128: C. Flavell Hayward’s entry into the Wroxeter visitor book. Image © SA 6001/186 f.60r.
	Figure 129: The cover of the music for Flavell Hayward and Elgar’s ‘A War Song’ (1903). Wikipedia commons.
	Figure 130: Ellen, Lady Berwick, with her husband, Richard, 7th Lord Berwick and a shooting party which may have included the Head Gardener, George Pearson, who recorded his visit to Wroxeter in the visitor book in 1884. Unknown photographer, 1880s. Atti
	Figure 131: The author leading a guided tour of Wroxeter to a part of the site not normally open to the public. It has been a long-term aim to open up more of the site to the general public. August 2019.
	Figure 132: The consolidated and rebuilt walls of a Roman building at Reinheim, Saarland. If you look carefully at the wall in the centre you can see that the lower part is the original wall. The rest has been built up to stabilise it and make sense of th
	Figure 133: Two of Atkinson’s workmen digging the forum. In the background is the fence of 1 & 2 The Ruins, and to the left, the sheep fold behind the farm buildings (Image © SA PH/W/38/3/51). The image indicates that the ruins are relatively shallowly bu
	Figure 134: The display inside Shrewsbury Tourist Information Centre. Plenty of lovely images of Shropshire, but none of them of Wroxeter. Author’s photos, December 2021, with the consent of staff.
	Figure 135: Goss Crested Ware souvenir of Wroxeter. The crest is of Shrewsbury – the Three Loggerheads over a ribbon with Floreat Salopia. Height of vessel 69mm. Image © Shropshire Museum Service, SHRMS: 2018.00170.
	Figure 136: The orientation display panel in the reception area of Attingham Park. Wroxeter Roman City is visible in the bottom right corner – the purple line of the estate boundary goes across the northwest corner of the monument. Author’s photo, June 20
	Figure 137: The Grassy Town forlorn, and its rent and mournful wall … with acknowledgement to the shade of Mary Webb.  Author’s photo, July 2020.
My Wroxeter
Introduction
Archaeologists and their stories
Poetic visions
Wroxeter depicted
Writing and visiting Wroxeter
Archaeology for all
Wroxeter’s people
Coda: Wroxeter in the 21st century
References