What did the Romans do for Maesbury?

- probably nothing . . . Did the Romans come to the area we now know as Maesbury? We don't know, but there is no known evidence that they did.

They were certainly in the wider area, see below for more about that, but most of the population at that time were not Roman, they were the Celtic tribes that became known as 'Romano British'. So were any of them in the Maesbury area? Again there is no evidence either way, all we can do is speculate.

Most of Shropshire, plus parts of Cheshire and Staffordshire, were occupied by a tribe the Romans called the Cornovii. Their capital was at Wroxeter (Viroconium Cornoviorum, east of Shrewsbury) which the Romans occupied and expanded to a large city of their own. These names are all Roman as the Celts left nothing in writing.

The population of Britain during the Roman occupation has been estimated at about 2 million - which is about 3.5% of the current population of over 57 million. The 2001 census gave the population of the Oswestry Rural Parish as 3,776 (that's Maesbury, Aston, Sweeney, Morda, Trefonen, Rhydycroesau and lots more). Assuming the proportion of people in that area, compared with the rest of the country, was about the same, then there would have been just 132 people in the parish in Roman times. Enough for 2, possibly 3 villages throughout the area. The picture below is an artist's impression of a Celtic settlement - was there one of these in the area we now call Maesbury? We simply don't know, and probably never will.

It is possible that there was a Cornovii settlement in the Maesbury area, and that it was eventually taken over by the Anglo-Saxons as their Meresberie. But it's equally possible that the villages were elsewhere and the Saxons built from scratch, there were just not enough Cornovii people for them to occupy the whole of what is now the Oswestry Rural Parish, though they may have farmed around Maesbury even if they lived elsewhere.

The Romans were in the wider area. There is evidence of a marching camp at Rhyn Park, between Weston Rhyn and Chirk, and of a temporary camp a mile or so to the south east of Whittington. But no evidence of a Roman road connecting them. Marching camps were usually 15 miles apart, the regulation distance for a one day march, we don't know why these two were only five miles apart. However, a straight line between them would continue through the next camp in line at Uffington (which is now just east of Shrewsbury) then on to the regional capital at Wroxeter - and in the other direction via another camp at Ruthin towards the North Wales coast where there are known Roman military camps and roads. The line of all these camps - and any road connecting them - would have gone through the Baschurch area, some way from Maesbury.

There was also Roman activity in the Llanymynech area, they had a copper mine there, apparently controlled from the military fort at Abertanat, just to the west.

The main Roman road, Watling Street, reached Wroxeter from the south east, then veered north through Whitchurch up to Chester. There was a possible road from Wroxeter to mid Wales (Welshpool/Montgomery area).

That is the sum total of everything positively known about the Romans anywhere near Maesbury.

Sources and further info:

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Web www.maesbury.org