Durocornovium

The town, encompassing around 25 hectares at its peak, was located at Nythe Farm, east of the A419 adjacent to modern Swindon, although the site is usually associated with the village of Wanborough to the southeast.

Duro- is a Celtic word meaning "door" (cognate at the Proto-Indo-European level with English door and Latin forum) and, by extension, "enclosed market, square, forum, walled town, village".,[1] Cornovium may either be a common noun in Brittonic meaning "horn, peninsula", or derive from the British Cornovii people of the Midlands, based around Wroxeter; alternately, we may have or an identically named tribe from the area of Durocornovium.

A minor tributary of the Cole, which rises at Chiseldon and flows past Durocornovium, was known variously in late Saxon charters as Dorcyn, Dorcan, Dorternebrok, probably derived from a British form *Dorce; this stream may have given its name to the settlement.

One building from this period has been identified, an apparently short-lived construction showing signs of iron working or blacksmithing, perhaps indicative of a mutatio (horse station).

With the military emphasis moving north the site was abandoned for at least twenty years before Britons resettled the place as shown by the remains of roundhouses dated to that time.

Durocornovium rested on a junction of roads linking regional administration centres at Calleva Atrebatum, Corinium Dobunnorum, and Venta Belgarum.

This centralised system might not have been sufficient for the control of a potentially rebellious populace and it's believed that some administration was spread to outlying towns which would have included Durocornovium.

Swindon hill was inhabited largely for the availability of spring water and typically this was something the Romans recognised in their religious life, raising the possibility of a major temple site either destroyed or undiscovered.

Although many Roman towns in the later empire built stone defences (such as walls and a gatehouse identified at Cunetio, near Marlborough ten miles to the south) this defensive work did not occur at Durocornovium.

It may be this was impossible on the marshy ground existing at the time, or simply that it was economically not viable, and it is notable that the hill fort at Liddington immediately to the south was re-occupied in the 3rd century.

The town has shown evidence of pottery remains from all over southern Britain, and some from Gaul and Africa, yet the potters of Durocornovium created a unique style of painted wares which never became fashionable nor widespread.