In the county of Northampton there are many sites which afford evidence of occupation by the Romans, either for military or domestic purposes.

Not only have we in the eastern extremity of the county, at Castor and in the neighbourhood, the remains of the city and great pottery works of Durobrivæ, with, in Huntingdonshire, the nearly-adjacent camp of Chesterton, and in the western portion of the county, near Daventry, the famous military station of Burrow Hill; but, besides these, along the valley of the Nen River and further westward, minor military stations are to be traced, which, occurring at short intervals, represent (as it has been suggested) a line of frontier and of military defence which was established by Ostorius Scapula, the Roman general in Britain under Claudius, and which extended from the Wash (Metaris Æstuarium) to the Bristol Channel.