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Durnovaria is the Latin form of the Brythonic name for the Roman town of Dorchester in the modern English county of Dorset.

The pre-Roman population centre in the area appears to have been at the hill fort of Maiden Castle, two miles south-west of the town centre. The inhabitants resisted the Roman invasion and their war cemetery was excavated in the 1930s. It later became the site of a 4th century Romano-British temple.

The site of present-day Dorchester may have originally been a small garrison fort for the Legio II Augusta established shortly after the Roman conquest. When the military moved away, around AD 70, Durnovaria became a civilian settlement. An organised street plan was laid out, public buildings erected and an artificial water supply established. The town seems to have become one of twin capitals for the local Durotriges tribe. It was an important local market centre, particularly for Purbeck marble, shale and the pottery industries from Poole Harbour and the New Forest. The town remained small, around the central and southern areas of the present settlement, until expansion to the north-west, around Colliton Park, in the 2nd century. By the middle of this century, the town defences were added and a neolithic henge monument was converted for use as an amphitheatre. There were many fine homes for rich families and their excavated mosaic floors suggest a mosaic school of art had a workshop in the town. A large late-Roman and Christian cemetery has been excavated at Poundbury just to the west of the town, but little is known of Durnovaria's decline after the departure of the Roman administration. The name, however, survived to become the Anglo-Saxon Dornwaraceaster and modern 'Dorchester'.

Roman town house ruins

The town still has some Roman features, including part of the town walls and the foundations of a Roman town house, which are freely accessible near County Hall. There are many Roman finds in the County Museum. The Romans built an aqueduct to supply the town with water but only a few traces remain at nearby Whitfield Farm (Details). Near the town centre is Maumbury Rings, an ancient British earthwork converted by the Romans for use as an amphitheatre, and to the north west is Poundbury Hill, another pre-Roman fortification.