Porticoes

Porticoes and colonnades were public structures in their own right, but they were also used to define the spaces of other buildings. Porticoes were used to surround many public buildings, including fora and temples, but they also provided monumental walkways around insulae and became places to congregate, shelter, and sell wares (Anderson 1997: 247-9); they were an influential part of daily life and invited people to meet and interact (Zanker 2000: 39; Perring 1991b: 280). They connected one public building with another, and they played a part in the movement of people around the town (MacDonald 1986: 117-18). Porticoes were classical forms of town organisation but it seems there were fewer in Romano-British towns than in the towns of other provinces.76

Known porticoes in Britain include those outside the St. Margaret’s Street bathhouse and around the temple precinct in Canterbury (Bennett 1981; K. Blockley et al. 1995: 98-100), in front of buildings in insulae XIV and XXVII at Verulamium (Frere 1983: 84, 203), around the baths complex at Wroxeter (Ellis 2000: 19-25), and in front of the forum at Lincoln (M. Jones 1999: 66).77 Their association with the classical world has meant that evidence of their demolition or change of use in the towns of Roman Britain in the late Roman period is often considered to represent decline. There is some evidence that porticoes along streets and attached to public buildings were transformed in the late Roman period. Rather than decline, however, the evidence could indicate vitality with a more intensified use of space. Many of the porticoes that were originally free from material, suggesting that they were kept clear in the Roman period, now have evidence of timber stalls and activity continuing into the fifth century; such is the case at Wroxeter, Canterbury, and Leicester (K. Blockley et al. 1995; Ellis 2000: 58-68; Cooper n. d.). This activity within the porticoes will have had an impact on movement around the towns, but it also represents vibrancy and the continued importance of the town centres.