Post by Andrew Tidd

Few English cities carry their age so visibly, or wear it with such unhurried confidence as Canterbury does. The city's origins predate Christianity by several centuries. The settlement known to the Romans as Durovernum Cantiacorum, later contracted to Durovernum, was an important crossroads town in the tribal territory of the Cantii, the Celtic people from whom Kent takes its name. The Romans arrived in force following the Claudian invasion of AD 43, and they transformed the settlement into a significant urban centre: a forum, a theatre, a bath complex, public buildings, and a road network that still underlies the modern city's geography. The Roman street pattern is visible in Canterbury today if you know where to look, ghosted beneath the medieval lanes.