Silchester is a village and civil parish about 5 miles (8 km) north of Basingstoke in Hampshire.

The University of Reading is leading a five-year archaeological research project to explore the later prehistoric use of the landscape around Silchester Roman Town and its underlying Late Iron Age oppidum (ancient Celtic fortified town).

[4] Calleva Atrebatum was an Iron Age oppidum and subsequently a town in the Roman province of Britannia and the civitas capital of the Atrebates tribe.

Its ruins are beneath and to the west of the parish church, which is itself just within the town wall and about 1 mile (1.6 km) to the east of the modern village.

The bronze Silchester eagle was discovered in the Basilica at Calleva in 1866 and can now be seen in Reading Museum.

The inscription on the ogham stone was in the Latin alphabet, but in Irish and appears to be indicating that the property belonged to someone named Tebicatos.

[8] Analysis of plant remains shows that Calleva residents had access to typical foods eaten in Roman Britain, such as cereals, coriander, and cultivated fruits.

[9] Calleva was finally abandoned in the 7th century, which is unusually late compared to other deserted Roman settlements.

[11] In 1204 he or a later Ralph Bluet gave a palfrey horse in exchange for a licence to enclose an area of land south-east of the former Roman town as a deer park.

[11] The Irish peer Murrough Boyle, 1st Viscount Blesington (1685–1718) bought the manor in 1704 and it remained with his hereditary heirs until the death of William Stewart, 1st Earl of Blessington in 1769.

[11] In 1778 it was inherited jointly by Thomas Vesey, 1st Viscount de Vesci and Edward Pakenham, 2nd Baron Longford.

[11] In the first decade of the 20th century Arthur Wellesley, 4th Duke of Wellington still owned the manor of Silchester.

[11] The wall of the south aisle was rebuilt in about 1325–50, incorporating an ogee-arched tomb recess containing the effigy of a lady wearing a wimple.