All the Welsh, Scottish, English and the UK capitals in history

Overview
A list of all the known Welsh, Scottish, English, UK's capitals in history to date. Sometimes there were many minor states, so the apparently most significant are listed as an 'ecanomic' or 'de facto' capital.

The Celts
There was no unified nation or declared capital, but town stood out and could clame a de facto ecanomic capital status.


 * 1) There was an Iron Age settlement known as Verulamium, Verlamion, or Verlamio, near the site of the present city, the centre of Tasciovanus' power and a major centre of the Catuvellauni from about 20 BC until shortly after the Roman invasion of AD 43. The name "Verulamium" is Celtic, meaning "settlement over or by the marsh". The town was on Prae Hill, 2 km to the west of modern St Albans, now covered by the village of St Michael's, Verulamium Park and the Gorhambury Estate. Although excavations done in 1996 produced finds which included silver coins from the Roman Republican era dating from 90/80 bc evidence of trade with the republic and that a settlement already existed on the site 50 years before Julius Caesar attempted to invade Britain, yet it is believed that the tribal capital was moved to the site by Tasciovanus (around 25 to 5 BC). Cunobelinus may have constructed Beech Bottom Dyke, a defensive earthwork near the settlement whose significance is uncertain.
 * 2) Colchester was once called Camulodunon. Originally the site of the Brythonic-Celtic oppidum of Camulodunon (meaning "stronghold of Camulos"), capital of the Trinovantes and later the Catuvellauni tribes, it was first mentioned by name on coinage minted by the chieftain Tasciovanus sometime between 20 and 10 BC.

Rome

 * 1) Colchester (Camulodunum) served as the first major British. It was designated as the capital of Roman Britain at around the time of the Roman senator and historian Tacitus. The Roman official Catus Decianus ruled as procurator of Britain from the ancient town in 60 AD.
 * 2) London (Londinium) was founded around 50AD and became the de facto capital in the wake of the rebellion by Boudicca in the 60's AD and the de facto capital in 100AD.

Post-Roman
There was no unified nation or declared capital, but several cities could clame a de facto capital status.

Romano-British

 * 1) Colchester (Camulodunum)- 409-411. Activity in the 5th century continued in Camulodunum at a much reduced level, with evidence of at the Butt Road site showing that it briefly carrying on into the early 5th century. 410-577
 * 2) Cair Lundem was it's direct post-Roman dependent of Londinium and controlled a local petty kingdom. It was a near to uninhibited ruin by the early 500s AD, when the Saxons came to settle it, save for a small survivor community in what would later become Southwark.
 * 3) Winchester (Wintan-ceastre\Cair Guinntguic ("Fort Venta")) Following the Roman withdrawal from Britain in 410, urban life seems to have continued at Venta Belgarum until around 450 AD, and a small administrative centre might have continued after that on the site of the later Anglo-Saxon palace.
 * 4) St Albans, The Roman city of Verulamium, was the second-largest town in Roman Britain after Londinium. Occupation by the Romans ended between 400 and 450. The Saxon Waeclingas surrounded and Verulamium and it assimilated in the 550s
 * 5) York (Eboracum) declined in the post-Roman era, and was taken and settled by the Angles in the 5th
 * 6) Bath (Aquae Sulis) may have been the site of the Battle of Badon (c.500 A). It was in sharp decline by the 550s-570s.

Romano-British, Dumnonii and Cornovii

 * 1) The Ravenna Cosmography, of around 700, makes reference to Purocoronavis (almost certainly a corruption of Durocornovium), 'a fort or walled settlement of the Cornovii': the location is unidentified, but Tintagel and Carn Brea have both been suggested. (If this is correct then it would have been on the site of Tintagel Castle.) It was controlled jointly by Romano-British Dumnonii and Cornovii. Rome had left in 410 AD, but trade contact continued untill about the 550s.

Dubonni

 * 1) Near Gloucester at (Caerloyw) - 410-577
 * 2) Cirencester (Corinium Dobunnorum) was a Romano-British settlement at- 410-430

Saxons, Angels, Jutes and Frisians
There was no unified nation or declared capital, but several cities could clame a de facto capital status.
 * 1) Saxon settlement of Lundenwic ("London trading town") was not within the Roman walls but to the west in Aldwych. Essex had created it 1 mile (1.6 km) to the west of Londinium (named Lundenburg, or ("London Fort").Excavations show that the settlement covered about 600,000 m2 (6,500,000 sq ft), stretching along the north side of the Strand (i.e. "the beach") from the present-day National Gallery site in the west to Aldwych in the east. They were the capital of Essex for awhile. London was formally incorporated into the Kingdom of Essex from the mid-6th century.
 * 2) Maldon was the capital of Essex for a while.
 * 3) Tamworth on the Staffordshire\Warwickshire county border acted as Mercia’s official capital under King Offa and had previously established as its royal centre by King Penda in the 7th century.
 * 4) Alfred the Great started Saxon rule from Winchester in the late 800s. Winchester (Wintan-ceastre\Cair Guinntguic ("Fort Venta")) was the capital of England between the 10th and 11th centuries.

Cumbric Yr Hen Ogledd
There was no unified nation or declared capital, but several cities could clame a de facto capital status.


 * 1) The Votadini transitioned into the Gododdin kingdom in the Early Middle Ages, with Eidyn serving as one of the kingdom's districts. During this period, the Castle Rock site, thought to have been the stronghold of Din Eidyn. In 638, the Gododdin stronghold was besieged by forces loyal to King Oswald of Northumbria, and around this time control of Lothian passed to the Angles.
 * 2) Rheged was run from Carlisle (the Roman Luguvalium). Rheged was annexed by Northumbria, some time before 730AD.
 * 3) Dumbarton rock emerged as a fortified town in 570AD. In 756, the first (and second) losses of Dumbarton Rock were recorded. A joint force of Picts and Northumbrians captured the fortress after a siege, only to lose it again a few days later. By 870, it was home to a tightly packed British settlement, which served as a fortress and as the capital of Alt Clut. In 871, the Irish-based Viking kings Amlaíb and Ímar laid siege to Dumbarton Rock. It's Cumbric Brythons citizens fled to Govan.
 * 4) Govan is believed to have then been part of a kingdom ruled from Dumbarton Rock, known as Alt Clut, the rock on the Clyde. During the Viking Age, perhaps following the sack of Dumbarton Rock in 878, Govan is believed to have been one of the major centres of the Kingdom of Strathclyde, which was conquered Kingdom of Alba in the 11th century.

Scotland

 * 1) King Malcolm IV described Scone Abbey, which once housed the famous ‘Stone of Scone’, as Scotland’s “principal seat”. With this, ancient village of Scone became the closest thing to a capital for the Kingdom of Scotland from around 1163.
 * 2) Edinburgh had became the Scottish capital after c. 1452.

Post-Roman Wales
There was no unified nation or declared capital, but several cities could clame a de facto capital status.


 * 1) Caerwent (Venta Silurum) is a village and community in Monmouthshire, Wales. It is located about 5 miles west of Chepstow and 11 miles east of Newport. (Venta Silurum) was an important settlement of the Silures tribe. The Unlike in other Welsh territories, inhabitants of Caerwent and Caerleon retained the use of defensible Roman town walls throughout the period-410-745.
 * 2) Chester in AD 79, as a "castrum"Cair Legion ("Fort Legion"). By 410 when the Romans retreated from Britannia, the Romano-British civilian settlement continued (probably with some Roman veterans staying behind with their wives and children) and its occupants probably continued to use the fortress and its defences as protection from raiders from the Irish Sea. The Angels conquered it in 616.
 * 3) Cardiff was
 * 4) 2.2 mi (3.5 km) south-west of Lichfield, near the point where Icknield Street crosses Watling Street, was the site of Letocetum (the Brittonic- Letocaiton, "Greywood"). Established in AD 50 as a Roman military fortress, it had become a civilian settlement (vicus) with a bathhouse and a mansio by the 2nd century Letocetum fell into decline by the 4th century and the Romans had Cair Luit Coyd ("Fort Greywood") left by the 5th century. There have been scattered Romano-British finds in Lichfield and it is possible that a burial discovered beneath the cathedral in 1751 was Romano-British. There is no evidence of what happened to Letocetum after the Romans left; however, Lichfield may have emerged as the inhabitants of Letocetum relocated during its decline. Cair Luit Coyd ("Fort Greywood") This passed into Old English as Lyccid, cf. Old Welsh: Luitcoyt, to which was appended Old English: feld "open country". This word Lyccidfeld is the origin of the word "Lichfield". Bede's history, where it is called Licidfelth. Letocetum lost all importance with the development of nearby Lichfield in the 7th century as the seat of a Bishop. When the place again emerged historically it was under a new name, "Wall".
 * 5) Gwynedd's capital was Deganwy (6th century), Llanfaes (9th century), Aberffraw and Rhuddlan (11th century), and Abergwyngregyn until 1216.
 * 6) Little is known about the fort and civilian settlement in the period between the Roman departure from Britain and the Norman Conquest. The settlement probably shrank in size and may even have been abandoned. In the absence of Roman rule, Wales was divided into small kingdoms; early on, Meurig ap Tewdrig emerged as the local king in Glywysing (which later became Glamorgan). The area passed through his family until the advent of the Normans in the 11th century. Rome had left by 388 AD, but trade contact continued until about the 550s.
 * 7) Caerleon was the headquarters for Legio II Augusta from about 75 to 300 AD, and on the hill above was the site of an Iron Age hillfort. The Romans called the site Isca after the River Usk (Welsh Wysg). Rome had left by 388 AD, but trade contact continued until about the 550s. The name Caerleon may derive from the Welsh for "fortress of the legion"; around 800 AD it was referred to as Cair Legeion guar Uisc.

Pre-unified Wales
There was no unified nation or declared capital, but several cities could clame a de facto capital status.


 * 1) Gwynedd's capital was Deganwy (6th century), Llanfaes (9th century), Aberffraw and Rhuddlan (11th century), and Abergwyngregyn until 1216.
 * 2) Principality of Powys Wenwynwyn was run from Welshpool 1160–1283
 * 3) Principality of Wales was run from Abergwyngregyn until 1216–1542.
 * 4) In addition to serving an important political role in the governance of the fertile south Glamorgan coastal plain, Cardiff was a busy port in the Middle Ages and was declared a staple port in 1327.

United Wales

 * 1) The small town of Machynlleth had Owain Glyndwr's Welsh Parliament there in 1404. It’s known as the ancient capital of Wales – though this was never officially recognised in England and still is not.
 * 2) Cardiff was slated as capital in 1924 poll, became it in 1950.

Vikings

 * 1) Jórvík 866-954 AD
 * 2) King Sweyn Forkbeard, who was crowned there on Christmas Day in 1013. He ruled England for just 40 days as nation’s shortest-reigning monarch. Gainsborough was his chosen capital.

Normans

 * 1) London was declared the de jure national capital by the Normans in 1066. It had grown so much in importance it had become the de facto since the 12th century.

English

 * 1) Canterbury had periodically been the capital of England in the middle ages. It still hosts the head of the Anglican Church.
 * 2) Oxford was declared the nation’s royalist capital for a while during the English Civil War when Charles I held his court in the city from 1642, after Oliver Cromwell successfully expelled him from London.
 * 3) Napoleonic war- Weedon, Bucks; Weedon, Northampton and Weldon, Northants were planned as a post invasion capital for a UK resistance movement.
 * 4) The Great Stink got so bad in 1858 that MPs suggested that the business of government to Oxford, Henley, Richmond-upon-Thames, Reading, Windsor, Southend-upon-Sea or St Albans. Oxford and St. Albans were the most likely, with Henley close behind.
 * 5) The government's cabinet sat ad-hoc in Inverness for a few days in the early 20th century.
 * 6) WW1-Liverpool was planned as a post invasion capital for a UK resistance movement.
 * 7) WW2-Worcester was planned as a post invasion capital for a UK resistance movement.

Also see

 * 1) United Kingdom