Venonis
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High Cross is the name given to the crossroads of the Roman roads of
Watling Street Watling Street is a historic route in England that crosses the River Thames at London and which was used in Classical Antiquity, Late Antiquity, and throughout the Middle Ages. It was used by the ancient Britons and paved as one of the main ...
and Fosse Way in Leicestershire,
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. It is about a mile west of the village of
Claybrooke Magna Claybrooke Magna is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Harborough District, Harborough district of Leicestershire, England, close to the A5 road (Great Britain), A5 trunk road. The village is located between junctions 2 ...
and was in the
hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...
of
Guthlaxton Guthlaxton is an ancient hundred of Leicestershire. Its jurisdiction was in the south of the county, and covered Lutterworth and Wigston Magna. At the time of the Domesday Book, it was one of Leicestershire's four wapentakes, and covered a muc ...
. It was the site of a
Romano-British The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, ...
settlement known as Venonae or Venonis, with a nearby fort. The remains of Venonis fort lies beneath the surface in a field to the South East of the crossroads adjacent to the tree line and is visible from satellite images. The location of the fort was also shown on a map drawn by William Stukely in the eighteenth century when structures were more clearly visible . Excavations were carried out by Arthur Pickering in the 1930s in the region of the cross roads but not the area of the fort itself. High cross stone monument was built in 1712. Funded by the Earl of Denbigh it celebrated the victories against France by the Duke of Blenheim as well as marking the centre of Roman Britain. It consisted of four Doric columns with an orb and cross above. It was struck by lightning in 1791 and only the plinth remains today. The stone monument was preceded by a wooden cross and was the site of a medieval gibbet. In modern times, this section of Watling Street is now a dual carriageway section of the A5, the southern part of the Fosse Way is a B road, and the northern route of the Fosse is now a track which is a part of a long-distance path called the Leicestershire Round. High Cross is depicted on the coat of arms of Blaby District Council, which is the local authority for the area. Two black diagonal lines on the shield, depict the Fosse Way and Watling Street.


References


External links

* *
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction
', Vol. X, No. 272, published 8 September 1827 *

', Sylvia Whitworth, Burbage Heritage group. {{coord, 52.49325, N, 1.30182, W, region:GB_source:enwiki-osgb36(SP475886), display=title Geography of Leicestershire Transport in Leicestershire History of Leicestershire Scheduled monuments in Leicestershire