You are standing in the middle of Verulamium. In Roman times, this was the third largest town in Britain.
But for at least 100 years before the Roman Conquest in AD 43, this area was the heartland of one of the most powerful of the British tribes, the Catuvellauni.
Today some of the earthworks that defined their tribal capital can still be seen. The earliest and most impressive are at Wheathampstead, to the north of Verulamium.
With a prosperous economy based on farming, the Catuvellauni were able to obtain fine Roman goods to use alongside their own. In the decades before the conquest they traded wheat and slaves for wine, olive oil, fine metalwork and pottery.
The tribe did not resist Roman rule after AD 43, and may have welcomed it.
Very soon, Verulamium began 400 years of development as a planned Roman town, beginning with a ditched enclosure, a regular pattern of streets and straight roads linking the town to others in Britain. The new town had a privileged status and may have been self-governing. Its inhabitants enjoyed the advantages of a more sophisticated Roman way of life.
Other tribes were not so easily won over. In AD 60 or 61, Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni of East Anglia marched against the invaders. She destroyed the Roman towns of Colchester, London and Verulamium before her forces were eventually defeated.
It took 20 years for Verulamium to recover. During this time the great municipal buildings were constructed.
At the heart of the town was the Basilica, the seat of local government. In the great hall, justice was dispensed.
Next to the Basilica was the Forum, the main commercial and business centre of the town. It was also the place where public meetings and open markets were held. And facing the Basilica, there were temples to the state gods of Rome, and the Emperor.
The triangular temple was unique in Roman Britain, and owed its shape to its location where the road from London divided inside the town. It’s likely that the goddess Cybele and her consort Attis were worshipped here.
The audience came to the theatre to see plays and hear readings from classical writings and listen to music and singing. Bullfighting and bear-baiting are also likely to have taken place.
Its close proximity to a temple suggests that it was also used for religious festivals.
By AD 200, the character of the town changed again following a catastrophic fire. Trades and industries stagnated and municipal buildings were neglected.
However, several impressive town houses were built set within secluded gardens and orchards.
This house had at least 33 rooms which included reception and dining rooms, kitchens, small domestic shrines, as well as servants’ quarters and store rooms.
Some rooms were decorated with colourful mosaic floors and fine wall paintings.
Principal rooms were heated by under-floor systems or hypocausts. The heat was produced in a furnace outside the building and the hot air drawn through channels beneath the floor and up box flues in the walls.
By AD 270, the Roman Empire faced uncertain times. This may be why Verulamium was encircled by a wall two miles in length. Now the town could only be entered through four main gateways.
The rise of Christianity was one of the forces troubling the Roman Empire at this time, and the practice of this new religion was forbidden.
Alban, a Roman citizen of Verulamium, was tried and executed after sheltering a Christian priest and becoming a Christian himself. He became Britain’s first martyr and gave his name to the town of St Albans. A shrine and probably an early church grew up near to the place of Alban’s execution.
Although by AD 410, Roman rule in Britain had ended, the Roman way of life continued for a generation or two.
It is likely that over the next 500 or 600 years a settlement of wooden buildings grew up amidst the ruins of the Roman town.
As Verulamium decayed, the new monastic and market town of St Albans prospered on the hill above it.
The great buildings of Verulamium were demolished and their materials used to build the Norman Abbey.
Little of Roman Verulamium remains standing and today only parts of the town wall are visible above ground level.
[Mortimer Wheeler]: “We are standing on the site of the ancient city of Verulamium, the civic predecessor of St Albans. Verulamium was a city for a century or more before London ……”
But excavations begun by Mortimer and Tessa Wheeler in 1930 have increased our understanding of the town and its people. Verulamium Museum displays many of the wonderful objects from these excavations.
Discoveries are still being made and slowly Verulamium continues to give up its stories and its secrets.