Anderidos

Attested:  Notitia Dignitatum Anderidos, where the Praepositus numeri Abulcorum was stationed under the Count of the Saxon Shore, and probably Andredesceaster in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for AD 491, plus other post-Roman mentions listed by Rivet & Smith.

Where:  Pevensey Castle, in Sussex, at Q64440477, at the east end of a peninsula extending from the west side of a huge marshy bay, which has since silted up to become dry land.  For how Pevensey Lagoon may have looked in Roman times, before it silted up, see this video presentation or try to make the government flood risk map work.

Name origin:  Greek ανδηρον ‘bank, edge of the sea’ (which might come from a non-Indo-European word involved with irrigation), usually seen in the plural as ανδηρα ‘raised bank of a river or ditch, dike’, combined with ιδος ‘warmth’ (distantly related to the words sweat and hydrate) to suit the Sussex coast, which holds the record for maximum hours of sunshine in Britain.

Notes:  The fort had water on three sides, which was unusual for Roman coastal forts.  Ships could probably float past it to what are now inland towns at Hailsham and Polegate. This name survived as a name for the Weald, which was still huge and sparsely populated at the time of Domesday Book.  An Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for AD 755 described Andred as a ‘great wood 120 miles long and 30 miles broad’ extending to Lympne in Kent.  Anderidos is regularly misquoted as Anderitum to support a bad theory that it was Celtic for ‘great ford’.  The claim that *ritu meant ‘ford’ is based on circular logic and does not stand up to examination.  A real Anderitum existed in south-central France, at Javols, a tribal capital whose archaeology is written up in detail here.  Excavators could not identify a ford there across the river Triboulin (and certainly not a “great ford”) and guessed that where carts needed to cross that river, a bridge was more likely.  That river was diverted, with monumental stone banks, before AD 50, into a new channel to create more space for a Romanised city.

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Last edited 27 August 2025       To main menu