Magnis (Kenchester)

Magnae, sometimes Magnae Dobunnorum[citation needed] (Latin for "The Greats of the Dobunni") to distinguish it from the Magnae of the Carvetii on Hadrian's Wall in northern Britain,[1] was a Romano-British town and an important market centre for the British Dobunni tribe, located near modern-day Kenchester in Herefordshire, England.

The town was shaped as an irregular hexagon, with a single main street along the line of the main Roman Road running east–west through the area, and an irregular pattern of side streets with tightly packed buildings leading off it.

[2] The Roman town is securely identified with the "Magnis" which appears both in the Antonine Itinerary and Ravenna Cosmography.

[4] However, the town was not a colonia, nor a tribal capital,[5] and Rivet and Smith derive the name from the Celtic word maen meaning 'stone' or 'rock'.

[10] In the Sub-Roman Period, the fort formed a citadel of the British kingdom of Pengwern.