Cornovii

Origins

The Cornovii occupied Shropshire, Cheshire and parts of Staffordshire and the Welsh borderland in the late Iron Age. Their landscape was dominated by hillforts such as the Wrekin, Titterstone Clee and the Breiddin, many of which had been occupied for centuries before the Roman period.

Rule and society

They issued no coins and used very little pottery, so their society is known mainly from hillforts and farmsteads. Livestock farming was central, and the brine springs of Cheshire supplied salt that was traded in distinctive clay containers. No rulers are named in any source, suggesting power was held by local chiefs.

Decline and legacy

The Roman army advanced into the region in the 50s, and around 55 to 60 a legionary fortress was built at Wroxeter below the Wrekin, which seems to have been abandoned. When the army left, the site became Viroconium Cornoviorum, capital of their civitas in Roman Britain and later the seat of post-Roman rulers in what became the Kingdom of Powys.