Basingstoke (Sorbiodunum), and by another Roman road that linked Silchester (Calleva Atrebatum) in the north with Winchester (Venta Belgarum) to the south. These cross-cutting highways, along with the good agricultural land hereabouts, account for the many “Roman” villas in the area, mostly put up by Romanized native nobility (Roman villa). Even more ancient was the Harrow Way, a Neolithic trackway, possibly associated with the ancient tin trade, that crossed all of southern England from west to east, from Cornwall to Kent, passing right through Andover and Basingstoke. The precise size and shape of Basingstoke today are difficult to identify, as it
Venta Icenorum Venta Icenorum Venta Icenorum, located at modern-day Caistor St Edmund in the English county of Norfolk, was the civitas or capital of the Iceni tribe, who inhabited the flatlands and marshes of that county and are famous for having revolted against Roman rule under their queen Boudica (or Boadicea) in the winter of 61 AD. The town itself was probably laid out, and its first streets metalled, approximately in the first half of the second century. The town, which is mentioned in the "Ravenna Cosmography", and the "Antonine Itinerary", was a settlement near the village of Caistor St. Edmund, some