Caerwent

Caerwent (Caer-went) is a village and community in Monmouthshire, Wales. It is located about five miles west of Chepstow and 11 miles east of Newport. It was founded by the Romans as the market town of Venta Silurum, an important settlement of the Brythonic Silures tribe. The modern village is built around the Roman ruins, which are some of the best-preserved in Europe. It remained prominent through the Roman era and Early Middle Ages as the site of a road crossing between several important civic centres. The community includes Llanvair Discoed. The village itself had a population of about 1,200. The modern name derives from Venta, an ancient British word denoting a "market", and Caer, a later Welsh word denoting a fortified settlement. The town would give its name to the post Roman successor kingdom of Gwent and it is possible that the modern name means "Fort of Gwent". Romans writers recorded the town as Venta Silurum to distinguish it from the other tribal markets in Britain such as Venta Belgarum and Venta Icenorum. Venta Silurum Caerwent was founded by the Romans in AD 75 as a market town for the defeated Silures tribe. This is confirmed by inscriptions on the "Civitas Silurum" stone, now on display in the parish church. Large sections of the Roman town walls are still in place, rising up to high in places. Historian John Newman has described the walls as: "easily the most impressive town defence to survive from Roman Britain, and in its freedom from later rebuilding one of the most perfectly preserved in Northern Europe." In 1881, a portion of a highly intricate coloured floor mosaic or tessellated pavement, depicting different types of fish, was unearthed during excavations in the garden of a cottage. Excavations in 1971 dated the north-west polygonal angle-tower to the mid-300s. Further excavations were carried out in 2008 by Wessex Archaeology and was featured in the Channel 4 TV programme Time Team. Modern houses are built on top of part of the old Roman market place.