SILCHESTER

village (parish) in Basingstoke and Deane borough, in the northern part of the administrative and historic county of Hampshire, England, southwest of Reading. Near the small modern village is the deserted site of the important Roman-British town of Calleva Atrebatum, a node of the Roman road system in Britain. Most of the antiquities recovered from the site are in the Reading Museum; the local Calleva Museum illustrates the life of the Roman town. Pop. (1981) 1,072.