Silchester Insula IX

Silchester (Calleva) experienced major disruption in the late first century A.D. as the Iron Age oppidum was transformed into the Roman city. Aligned on the cardinal points, a rectilinear street grid was established replacing the late Iron Age network of streets and lanes oriented NW/SE and NE/SW. The excavated area of Insula IX contained one complete property and fragments of three others. Rather than conform to the new grid all the buildings were constructed at 45 degrees to it, reasserting the late Iron Age orientations. The complete property consisted of a rectangular kitchen, a town-house and a roundhouse separated by a yard from a rebuilt taberna. Surgical and writing instruments associated with the roundhouse suggested it functioned as a healer's and/or teacher's house.