Deva Victrix

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Deva Victrix, or simply Deva, was a fort and town in the Roman province of Britannia. Today it is known as Chester, located in the English county of Cheshire.

Contents 1 Early beginnings 2 The fortress 3 The baths 4 The quarry 5 Sources

[edit] Early beginnings

Deva was founded around 79 CE during the reign of Vespasian. It is thought that the title "victrix" in the name of the legion and fortress refers to the defeat of Boudicca and the British rebellion against Roman rule by the twentieth legion. The Roman name of Deva for Chester was pronounced "Deewa" and derives from "goddess". Thus, the Roman fortress was named after the goddess of the River Dee. Today's name Chester derives from the Latin word "castra", which is present in many other cities that were once Roman towns and forts.

[edit] The fortress

The Romans positioned the larger than normal fortress high on a sandstone bluff above the marshes. The fortress covered 60.90 acres, 20% larger than those in York and Caerleon, which were founded at the same time. Free from the floods of winter and the ever-changing shorelines of the estuary, the bend in the River Dee provides protection on two sides – south and west. It is also the lowest bridgeable and fordable point on the River Dee before it becomes too wide and treacherous. Drinking water was piped in from a spring in the suburb of Boughton.

The fortress was designed in the standard "playing card" shape, with some modifications to the normal plan of buildings. It had four gates, corner towers and interval towers between the gates. The Roman gates had double arches and the Roman Eastgate had a statue of Mars, the Roman god of war, in the middle of the two arches. A fosse or ditch was dug around the north and east sides to provide extra protection. It has been calculated that the fortress was designed to accommodate 6,000 soldiers. The internal buildings consisted of barracks, baths, a hospital, a granary and some "headquarters" buildings. The main fortress baths were located halfway down the modern Bridge Street on the right-hand side. The full plan of Roman Deva is still not known because only limited excavations have taken place following demolition work of later buildings. It has been speculated that a Roman temple may have existed under Chester Cathedral – this is yet to be proved.

The original fortress was constructed of timber and replaced later with a stone fortress. Traces have been found under the amphitheatre and market hall of pre-fortress buildings on a different alignment. It has been speculated that a forward camp was established before the first timber fortress was constructed. The castle hill is also a possible site for such a camp. The timber fortress would have looked like the one reconstructed at Lunt Roman Fort.

Local sandstone was quarried from the south of the river around the area now called Edgar’s Field to provide building material for the fortress and its buildings. The Roman quarry face is still visible today on the outcrop of rock in the field. Through excavations, it has been established that many of the stone buildings were not completed and they were left abandoned for as much as 100 years before they were completed to a slightly modified plan.

The second Legion built their fortress in the territory of the Cornovii. It soon became the main base for Legio XX Valeria Victrix, the 20th Legion, which used it as a port administration base and military fort. It was then one of the principal towns of Roman Britain, with many relics remaining today, including parts of the original Chester Roman walls, parts of a hypocaust system from a Roman bathhouse, and a strongroom from the 'principia', as well as the street pattern at the Cross, where the four main streets intersect and half of its original amphitheatre (controversially, the other half was built over, but is currently being excavated).

Parts of the Roman quay wall of the port can still be seen under the medieval walls at the racecourse. It has been suggested that this quay wall formed a platform for a jetty which stretched out across the river to allow ships to dock at low tide.

Later on in the fortress's history, settlements began to develop outside the fortress walls between the west wall and the port area near the river. Mansion buildings were created for wealthy Romans outside the Walls, an example of which was discovered on Castle Street. Roman shops and workshops lined the incoming roads and to the south as far away as modern day Eccleston. A bath complex was established outside the fortress walls on the modern Watergate Street under the site now occupied by Sedan House.

By Roman law, the dead were buried outside the fortress in cemeteries along the incoming roads to the north and east. Some were cremated and buried in urns, others buried in stone-lined tombs. Elaborate monuments lined the roads. Sometime in the Roman period, these monuments were broken up and used to repair the fortress walls. During the 19th century, these tombstones were recovered from the north wall and now form the best collection of Roman tombstones in the UK. They can now be seen in the Grosvenor Museum.

The Roman fortress was occupied up to the 4th Century. Roman coins have been found in the area dating up to this time. The fortress was described as waste land in the 6th century. It is thought that some Roman buildings remained standing as late as the Norman period. This is the reason why Northgate Street is dog-legged in shape. A massive column base of the Roman 'principia' can be seen through the floor in the shop Blacks. Much of the Roman masonry was robbed out and reused in later periods.

A recent Timewatch investigation by the BBC speculated that, from the size and scale of the fort, had the Roman Empire not begun to collapse, Deva would have become the Roman capital of Britain and a launch post for invasions on Ireland. In fact, recent discoveries of a fort in Ireland suggest that at least one foray was made.

Although both Gildas and Bede located the Roman martyrs, Julius and Aaron, in the "City of the Legions", this is generally identified as Isca Augusta (Caerleon) rather than Deva, because of the chapels there dedicated to the two saints from at least medieval times.

[edit] The baths

Like most Roman settlements, Deva Victrix had a large legionary bath complex for the soldiers to wash and to use for leisure time. The remains on the east side of Bridge Street were largely destroyed during the construction of the Grosvenor Mall. It has been estimated that the baths used between 500,000 and 750,000 litres of water a day, which was supplied from the springs in Boughton. Water was piped in large lead pipes underground from a branch off the main aqueduct near the Eastgate, downhill to the baths on Bridge Street. The water was then held in large tanks with concrete foundations, and then fed through the complex. Waste water would have been fed downhill using gravity to the river. The water was fed through 24 hours a day.

The bath complex consisted of an exercise hall, courtyard, and three Turkish baths with basins and plunge pools. The complex was warmed by a hypocaust, or under-floor heating system, fed by three furnaces. The ceilings of the baths were domed with lines of terracotta tubes to support the structure. Part of the Roman hypocaust remains in situ under the Mall and can be viewed from the cellar of the restaurant on 39 Bridge Street. The remains consist of a number of local sandstone pillars on a concrete base supporting a buried Roman floor. Also remaining in situ is part of a fine Roman mosaic floor, located under St. Michael's Arcade by the Bridge Street entrance. It is known that the bath complex stood for a long time after being abandoned by the Romans. When part of the site was excavated during the demolition of the Feathers Hotel, the floor was found intact with a 0.4 meter covering with dark soil from the Saxon period, followed by remains of the collapsed roof. Five columns from the exercise hall with parts of another hypocaust can be viewed in the Roman Gardens off Pepper Street.

[edit] The quarry

The second fortress was constructed of local sandstone, which was quarried from across the river to the south of the fortress. Traces of the quarry can still be seen today in Handbridge. A large amount of sandstone was taken and used in the construction of the fortress wall and the many buildings inside. On the old quarry face, near an old ford, was carved an image of the Roman goddess Minerva. It may have been carved by the workmen of the quarry for protection.

[edit] Sources

The initial text for this page comes mainly from Wikipedia.