The Oldest town in Britain is a title claimed by a number of settlements in Great Britain.
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Thatcham in Berkshire is often claimed as the oldest town in Britain, since its occupation can be traced back to a mesolithic hunting camp, which was discovered there beside a Post-glacial rebound period lake, and there is evidence of human occupation within and around Thatcham covering the past 13,000 years or more.
There is strong evidence to support the case that people settled in Thatcham in the Mesolithic Age (10,000BC - 4,000BC). Arguably it is the Bronze (2,500BC - 750BC) and Iron (750BC - 43AD) Ages which make Thatcham more notable than any other, and indeed makes Thatcham a nationally important place. Thatcham has strong evidence that it was settled by the Romans, then Saxons, and was mentioned in the Domesday Book. Subsequently it received medieval charters.
Thatcham has a place in the 1990 Guinness World Records as being the strongest claimant to the longest continually inhabited town in the UK.
Abingdon in the English county of Oxfordshire (historically Berkshire) also claims to be the oldest town in Britain in continuous settlement, with people having lived there for at least 6,000 years. In 1991 evidence of a late-Iron Age enclosure of 33 hectares known as an 'oppidum' was discovered underneath the town centre. Unlike other major earthworks discovered from this period, it continued to be used as a town throughout the Roman occupation of Britain and subsequently became the Saxon settlement of Sevekesham or Seovechesham at a time when most other Roman cities were being abandoned.[1][2][3]
In 2010 the issue of whether Thatcham or Abingdon was the longest inhabited town was disputed after the popular TV program QI claimed on its website's Fact Of The Day that it was Abingdon.
Colchester claims to be Britain's oldest recorded town.[4][5] Its claim is based on a reference by Pliny the Elder, the Roman writer, in his Natural History (Historia Naturalis) in AD 77. He described Anglesey as "about 200 miles from Camulodunum, a town in Britain", where Camulodunum was the Roman name for Colchester. It is claimed that this is the first known reference to any named settlement in Britain.
However, Camulodunum clearly existed for a substantial period before AD 77. From around AD 10, Cunobelinus (the Cymbeline of Shakespeare's play), ruled much of south-east Britain from Camulodunon (the "fortress of the war god, Camulos") until his death in AD 40. Following the invasion by Claudius in AD 43, Camulodunum became the first garrison and capital of the new Roman province of Britannia. In AD 50, Britain's first city, Colonia Claudia Victricensis, was founded there, but the city was razed and its citizens massacred in Boudica's rebellion in AD 60. The Roman provincial capital subsequently moved to Londinium (London) where it remained until the end of Roman colonization and influence.
Ipswich, the county town of the English county of Suffolk, also claims it is England's oldest continuously settled town, with a history of continued occupation since the Anglo Saxons.[6][7]
Marazion in Cornwall is one of the towns claiming to be Britain's oldest town. Evidence of tin mining begins to appear in Brittany, Devon and Cornwall, and in the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 BC, and all are possible candidates for the Cassiterides (Tin Islands), believed to be situated somewhere near the west coasts of Europe. Remains of an ancient bronze furnace, discovered near the town, indicates that tin smelting was practised here at an early period. Marazion was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1088 and is the oldest chartered town in Britain, having been granted this status by King Henry III in 1257.