ALCESTER has been placed at the centre of a ‘London underground’ style map of Britain’s ancient Roman roads.
The map was designed by Chicago University student Sasha Trubetskoy and features dots and circles representing towns and settlements with different coloured lines denoting the roads.
Alcester was founded by the Romans in around AD 47 who gave it the name of Alauna.
Situated on the join of the Rivers Alne and Arrow, it started life as a walled fort before developing into a key market town.
Mr Trubetskoy, who has also produced ‘underground’ maps of the entire Roman Empire, places the town at the heart of his map, on Icknield Street, now the line of the modern A435.
It sits halfway between Bourton to the south and Wall, an important Roman junction where to the north Icknield Street and Watling Street met.
Alcester has seen more than 100 archaeological digs in the last 80 years which have shown the extensive spread of the town beyond the original settlement walls.
Laurence Thatcher, chairman of the Alcester Heritage Trust said: “When the Romans were here the town was very significant. There was a huge granary which was used as a tax collection point as people paid their taxes in grain.
“It was located in what is now Waitrose car park.
“In the 1980s they carried out a dig on the site hoping to find its foundations but instead found a massive wall, built around the 3rd Century AD, which encircled the town centre and was built from the stones from the granary.
“This wall was immense and we still don’t know why it was built or what had changed for them to dismantle the granary.”
He added visitors to the site can now follow the outline of the granary and the Roman wall.
Alcester’s Roman Museum and Heritage Centre is located with the town library in Globe House on Priory Road and holds a huge amount of information on its past.
For more on Mr Trubetskoy’s map, visit http://sashat.me/2017/07/23/roman-roads-of-britain/
