The city of Viroconium, with an area of about 170 acres, was the fourth largest city in Britain, and the largest one which owed its importance purely to the fact that it was a cantonal centre. It lies to-day almost entirely beneath farmlands, only a small part being covered by the modern village of Wroxeter. In spite of these facts, so encouraging and favourable to excavation, many of the problems of its history have not yet been solved. Only one series of excavations on the site have so far been scientifically executed and published, those carried out by Mr. J. P. Bushe-Fox, F.S.A. for the Society of Antiquaries in 1912–14, but these unfortunately did not reach any of the principal buildings of the city. The earlier excavations, in the middle of the nineteenth century, which located the well-known Bath Buildings, like all excavations of that date, did not produce any reliable evidence of the history of the site. The excavations carried out by Professor Donald Atkinson in 1924–6, which identified the Forum, have not yet been published.