Caistor St Edmund

Evocative ruins of East Anglia’s Roman capital

A few miles south of Norwich, the village of Caistor St Edmund is mainly visited for the nearby site of Venta Icenorum – a Roman town that was the ‘marketplace of the Iceni’, the tribe that inhabited much of East Anglia during Roman times, of whom Boudicca is the most famous warrior. Settled after the Iceni revolt of a.d. 60, Venta was the largest Roman town and capital of the east of England for a time, growing from a small settlement in a.d. 70 to a much larger place in the late 3rd century, when the city walls were added. There’s nothing much to see now, but it’s an evocative site nonetheless – a large windswept field bordered on one side by the gently flowing river Tas, and surrounded by the denuded walls and towers of the Roman settlement. At one end, the church of St Edmund adds an extra splash of interest, an extremely ancient church dating back to the 1100s.

Caistor’s walls make an ideal focal point for a stroll, punctuated by information boards detailing the nature of the settlement, and illustrating how it would have looked in its heyday. On the far side, the West Gate, by the river, was probably Venta’s main entrance.The town was at its largest by the 4th century, when it would have had a population of around 2,000, most of whom would have been locals rather than Romans. Despite that, it would have been a wealthy, well-appointed sort of place, with an amphitheatre, baths, temples and forum. Discoveries by archaeologists have confirmed that the town was both an industrial and agricultural centre, at the heart of grazing and arable land, but also producing glass, ceramics and other products.

After the Romans left in the 5th century, Venta declined, eventually being abandoned in favour of Norwich around 200 years later, leaving the pristine site you see today (though one with sadly little in the way of remains).

Address Stoke Road, Caistor St Edmund, Norwich NR14 8QL | Getting there By car, 15 – 20-minute drive from the centre of Norwich, or take bus 40 or 41 | Hours 24 hours; free guided tours Sun 2.30pm May – Sep, and Wed 2.30pm Jul – Aug | Tip It’s half a mile or so’s stroll from the site to the next village of Stoke Holy Cross, whose excellent gastropub, The Wildebeest, is a nice place to round off your trip out of town. On a sunny day – and with a car – you might even drive for another 5 minutes to Shotesham Ford, which is a popular swimming spot off the main road just outside the village.