Listed 2 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "USK Town WALES" .
Burrium (Usk) Monmouthshire, Wales.
Founded as a legionary fortress ca. A.D. 55, 18 km from the estuary of the river
Usk, it was demolished and replaced by a smaller auxiliary fort ca. A.D. 75. This
fort was dismantled early in the 2d c. A.D. when an extensive civil settlement
grew up on the site and continued until the 4th c.
The existing evidence suggests that it was constructed by the Legio
XX Valeria as a main base for the early Neronian campaigns of Quintus Veranius
(A.D. 57-58) and Suetonius Paulinus (A.D. 58-61) against the Silures (Tac. Ann.
14.29). Its actual construction, however, may be the work of their predecessor,
Didius Gallus, governor in A.D. 52-57. The site is of great strategic importance:
it commands the Usk valley, which leads from the coastal lowlands into the mountains
of S Wales, at a point where it is joined by a supply road from England running
along the Olway valley.
Excavations and magnetometer surveys in 1965-74 have revealed the
line of the defenses on the N, E, and S sides, showing that the fortress covered
an area in excess of 18.75 ha. If the plan is assumed to be symmetrical the full
size would be ca. 21.25 ha. The defenses were of earth and timber with a single
ditch except on the S side where it was doubled. At intervals of ca. 100 Roman
feet were timber towers. The E gate, excavated in 1971, had a double carriageway
flanked by twin towers and approached by a timber bridge across the ditch. With
the exception of the bath all the known buildings are of timber, including 13
granaries and a series of large works or stores compounds set on the N side of
the via principalis.
The site, constricted by rivers and hills, is subject to sudden, severe
flooding which makes it unsuitable for a permanent fortress. Accordingly, in ca.
A.D. 75 when the conquest of S Wales was completed and the strategic importance
of Burrium lessened, the buildings were demolished and the fortress closed, to
be replaced by a new foundation at Isca (Caerleon) 11 km downstream near the estuary
of the Usk. The smaller fort which was then built at Usk appears to have been
an auxiliary fort of the type found throughout Wales in the early Flavian period.
It was demolished at the beginning of the 2d c. A.D. The civil settlement that
occupied the site in the 2d-3d c. A.D. was an lmportant center of iron production
and may have served as a works depot for the Legio II Augusta stationed at Isca
(Caerleon). Excavations are in progress.
W.H. Manning, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Feb 2006 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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