[5][6] Wroxeter was first established in the early years of the Roman conquest of Britain as a frontier post for a cohort of Thracian Auxilia who were taking part in the campaigns of the governor, Publius Ostorius Scapula.

[7] The site is strategically located near the end of Watling Street, the primary Roman trunk road that ran across Britannia from Dubris (Dover).

In the mid 1st century Caesar's Legio XIV Gemina took over the site from the Thracian Auxilia in preparation for the invasion of Wales and replaced the fort with a much larger legionary fortress.

[8][9] In 78 governor Gnaeus Julius Agricola led campaigns to suppress the tribes in North Wales and the druids on Ynys Môn.

[7] The colonnaded forum was started in the 120s covering the unfinished bath house, and with the impressive dedicatory inscription to Hadrian found in excavations dating the completion to 130.

Although Viroconium served as the early sub-Roman capital of Powys, variously identified with the ancient Welsh cities of Cair Urnarc[11] or Cair Guricon[12] which appeared in the Historia Brittonum's list of the 28 civitates of Britain,[13] Viroconium became the site of the court of a sub-Roman kingdom known in Old English as the Wrocensaete, which was the successor territorial unit to Cornovia.

[15] The inscription, probably on a re-used gravestone, is dated to 460-475 AD, when Irish raiders had begun to make permanent settlements in South Wales and south-western Britain.

In all, 33 new buildings were "carefully planned and executed" and "skillfully constructed to Roman measurements using a trained labour force".

The historian, John Wacher, suggests that Shrewsbury may have been refortified by refugees fleeing an outbreak of a plague in Viroconium around this time.

Although archaeologist Philip A. Barker believed stonework from Viroconium Cornoviorum was used to build the nearby parish churches of Atcham, Wroxeter, and Upton Magna,[23] some substantial remains are still standing.

The builders were assisted by a team of local volunteers and supervised by archaeologist Dai Morgan Evans, who designed the villa.