NOTES UPON THE
ROMANO - BRITISH SETTLEMENT
AT
CHIGWELL, ESSEX.
By I. Chalkley Gould.
BY the Romano-British period is intended the time of Roman
rule in Britain, that is to say, from a.d. 43 to 410. Caesar
fought and conquered here 55 and 54 b.c., but he departed
leaving no Roman settlement in the land. Nearly a century
passed before Plautius, a general of the Emperor Claudius, came
in a.d. 43 and effected a settlement which, enlarged from time to
time, lasted for three centuries and a half, till in a.d. 410 the
province was abandoned by the Emperor Honorius.
During the time of the Roman rule, settlements were made
throughout the land. Some of these have grown into great cities
of to-day ; others have decayed and passed away, not a name
remaining to tell that subjects of imperial Rome once passed their
days on these lonely sites.
One amongst many such deserted spots, the Chigwell site has
no record to tell who settled there, but perhaps we may guess that
there, as elsewhere, some veteran, rewarded with a grant of land,