Vento Icenorum

Yesterday I blipped Norwich city centre from St James Hill, with the (just over) 900 year old cathedral as a rather grand centrepiece. Here, just outside the city, is it's predecessor.

After the usual mundane morning stuff (and fixing an electrical fault with our downstairs lights) when she returned from work we all drove a couple of miles down the road to Vento Icenorum.

More recently known as Caister St Edmund, the Roman town sits alongside the River Tas, and defines the landscape. The surrounding wall peeks through the grass bank here and there, and on the eastern edge more of the wall is revealed to give a hint of it's full height - four metres. When you stand alongside it, looking up at it's flint construction, you realise what a good job the Romans made of it. I've seen many 20th century structures in worse condition. From the air, the street layout can still be seen, when not covered by sheep. From alongside, it's an impressive square raised plateau with a fourteenth century church perched on one edge. As well as the wall, there are a couple of rounded structures which appear solid, and a couple of lumps of possibly fallen wall just outside the boundary.

It's open to the public, and would be a lovely peaceful place, except that the A47 (very busy road at times) and the Norwich - London rail line both pass by less than a mile away, and the nearby substation means the view is lacerated by pylons and cables.

Last summer archaeologists were digging, and were very willing to talk to passers by (I missed my chance but she visited), and now, there is preservation work on the wall - hence the planks and tarpaulins. There was a proposal, and quite a bit of support to build a visitor centre next door to promote and preserve the site. With our current government that now seems extremely unlikely, with existing museums warning of having to loose exhibits. What price our past?

Anyway, we all had a nice walk.