The Roman Emperor, Julius Caesar came to Britain in 55 and again in 54 BC.

But it was not until 43 AD that the Emperor Claudius sent the Roman army to make Britain part of the Empire.

Britain was to be part of the Roman Empire for almost 400 years.

The Roman army made roads through this area. You can still see part of the Roman road in Sutton Park. They also built a fort for a thousand soldiers where the University of Birmingham is now.

However, Birmingham was not an important area for the Romans. There were dense forests on the east side of Birmingham (including around Castle Bromwich) which were difficult to get through. And the land to the west of Birmingham was not very good for farming.

So, apart from the fort near Birmingham University, the Romans passed through this area and did not build towns here.

The Iron Age Celtic people were here before the Romans and they still lived here. They had villages and farms and fields as they had always done - and they probably lived in a village somewhere in Castle Bromwich, although no evidence has been found of it. 

This map shows the Roman roads in the Birmingham area on a modern Google map.

If it's red, it's Roman. The rest of the map is modern.

None of the towns and roads were here 2000 years ago, just forests and countryside and a few small farms with rough tracks between them. 

The Romans did not build a road through Castle Bromwich, but it is fairly certain that they did use the Chester Road which had already been in use for thousands of years.

Metchley Fort

The Birmingham area was not a centre of Roman civilisation: there were no Roman towns or villas here. But there is evidence of occupation by the Roman army. Excavations took place near Birmingham University in the 1930s which unearthed a Roman fort. It had been built for about a thousand soldiers soon after the invasion of 43 AD and it was used for about a hundred years. (The Romans were in Britain for almost 400 years.)

The Roman road in Sutton Park can still be seen; it was built by the Roman army.

And archaeologists have excavated evidence of ordinary people: farms at Kings Norton and near the Bull Ring, a number of pottery kilns, and a Roman temple near Coleshill. Many coins have also been found and some hoards of coins.

In the 1970s, before the Chelmsley Collector Road was built, archaeologists from the University of Birmingham excavated the area around the Castle Hill.

At the bottom of the hill they found evidence of a building made of timber and clay. They also found pieces of Roman pottery including a piece of a mortar for grinding spices.

It is not known what the building was and it is not known what it was used for. 

Buried Treasure

Lots of Roman coins have been found in Birmingham - not by archaeologists, but often by gardeners. On the parkland by Castle Bromwich Hall a coin known as a dupondius was found in 1963. It had on it the portrait of Empress Faustina II who ruled early in the 2nd century; the coin is nearly 2000 years old.

In the 19th century a gold coin was found in Castle Bromwich. It had been made in York by a Celtic tribe called the Brigantes and was designed in the Roman style.

Who knows what you might find in your garden!

Mystery 

Perhaps most interesting is the Shard End coin hoard (Shard End used to be part of Castle Bromwich.) William Wood was the farmer at Shard End Farm which stood on the corner of the Heath Way near the shops on Shard End Crescent.

While Farmer Wood was working in the fields in 1909, he dug up an old pot.

It was a rough clay pot and not very well made. But when he tipped it up, out fell a large number of coins. They were silver coin, Roman coins, known as denarii - and there were 200 of them, a large sum of money in Roman times.

The coins ranged in date from the reign of the Emperor Nero (54-68 AD) to the Emperor Commodus (180-192 AD). So they would probably have been buried about the year 200.

Some of the coins were actually forgeries almost 2000 years old. No-one knows why the coins were buried. They were worth a lot of money 2000 years ago. It may be that there was a rich farm here in Roman times. There may have been trouble from thieves, or a threat of war from local tribes, and the farmer wanted to keep his money safely hidden.

We do not know what happened to the person who hid the money - except that he never saw his silver coins again.

For lots more information about Roman Britain, click on the picture to open the BBC History website on a new page. 

There's even more to find out on David & Margaret's Early British Kingdoms website.

Click to open it on a new page.