1. The existence of a Roman military site at Wonastow was first suspected when Romano-British pottery was was recovered during field walking in 1966. Follow-up resistivity survey and trial trenching confirmed its existence and the finds (including Samian pottery, coarseware and a dolphin brooch) suggested a Flavian foundation with activity continuing into the early second century.

2. Extract from Burnham and Davies 2010 'Roman Frontiers..'. RCAHMW. Page 290.
'Aerial photographs of the fields to the east of Wonastow House (SO 484 111) show cropmarks of a triple ditch alignment running east-north-east/west-south-west across part of the field to the east of the vicarage; the two more northerly ditches turn about a rounded corner, defining the south-west angle of a rectangular enclosure whose north-west corner is represented by cropmarks in the adjoining field. The enclosure, putatively an auxiliary fort, measures about 160m north-west/south-east by at least 60m north-east/south-west. There are faint traces of rectilinear structures within.

Small-scale excavations by Monmouth Archaeological Society in 2004 and 2005 revealed timber buildings of sleeper-beam construction and of Roman date on both sides of a trackway from the Wonastow road to north-west of the cropmarks. Thereafter in 2006, as a result of ground-works associated with a barn extension at the end of the trackway, Monmouth Archaeology discovered the defences of a fort on a wholly different alignment to the known cropmarks. Two V-shaped ditches were located, aligned north-west/south-east, the inner 3.5m wide and 1.5m deep with a well-defined 'ankle-breaker', the outer, at least 2.75m wide and 1m deep, truncated by a pit containing iron-working debris.... Associated pottery and coins, both stratified and unstratified, are largely of Flavian date, though there is a range of material extending into the late 3rd/early 4th century from the site.'

Sources: Hall 1966 (AW6), 16 [37];
Hall & Sockett 1967 (AW7), 12 [23].
Manning 2004 'the Romans: Conquest & the Army' in Gwent County History I, 178-204 [191].

3. Wonastow Roman fort, Mitchel Troy (SO4842 1109). Royal Commission aerial photographs taken on 1st August 2013 (AP_2013_5411 to 5415) recorded cropmarks showing the eastern portion of this site which had so far eluded previous investigators. Cropmarks recorded by the Royal Commission in 1994 first clarified the position of the rounded south-west corner of the fort at SO 484 110 plus other linear ditches on the line of the southern defences. The new photographs from 2013 show the continuation of the southern defences of the fort to the east, with the previously unrecorded south-east angle of the fort seen at SO 485 111. This gives an approximate east-west measurement for the fort of 180m, to the centre line of the defences. The defences then swing north and can be traced for some 130m before they reach a patch of woodland. There appears to be an original a break in these eastern defences towards their southern angle, possibly the site of a gate. There is also the suggestion of a partition or annex mid way along the fort with a ditch returning west, but a lack of clarity in the cropmarks here does not permit some details to be resolved without further ground-based remote sensing.

T. Driver, RCAHMW, 2013