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At the heart of the Roman culture was its basic fighting and colonizing unit, the Legion. Roman Legio XX "Valeria Victrix" was the most well-known legion that fought and held Roman Britannia.

image source: tourchester.co.uk

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The Celtic tribes that the Romans subdued lived in iron age settlements and farms similar to other peoples in northern Europe. A defining feature was the series of thatch round houses (see archeological illustration below) and/or earthen barrows built into hillsides. J.R.R. Tolkien's rendering of the "hobbit holes" of Hobbiton from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings is a romantic but not unrealistic rendering of a Celtic settlement in mid and late Iron Age Britain.

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The best known and most nearly successful rebellion against the Romans by the native Celtic tribes in Britannia was lead by Queen Boudica of the Iceni people. In year 60, Boudica led an army of 100, 000 Britons that overran the garrison at present-day Colchester and occupied and burned the Roman settlement of Londinium (London). Boudica's victory was such that Emperor Nero considered removing the Roman forces from the island all together. The Romans, however, regrouped under the General Suetonius and won back control of southern England.

image source: romeacrosseurope.com

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The Romans were master architects of infrastructure, nothing more basic and important to their power and influence than the straight, Roman road -- which aided military movement and facilitated trade.

image source: bbc.co.uk

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While many might assume that the Romans brought coinage with them to Britain, there was already a relatively sophisticated system of coinage extant in Britain before the Roman invasion in 43 AD, probably the result of centuries of trading between the Celtic tribes of Britain with those on the continent, including Rome.

While much commerce included trade in actual goods or livestock, coinage assisted in large or complicated transactions as well as tax collection.

Pictured below is a bronze coin used by the Iceni people -- whose leader in 60 AD, Queen Boudica, led an uprising against the Romans in Southeast England.

image source: museum.suffolk.co.uk

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The Romans held territory with a very disciplined system of manned garrisons. Around most garrisons, or castra, would grow a market town. Many British towns with the suffix -chester or -caster or -cester in their names indicate the site of an old Roman garrison or military fortification (thus, Manchester, Doncaster, Leicester, Colchester, etc.)

The image below is a rendering of the Roman settlement of Deva Victrix on the River Dee. Today, the walled English city of Chester exists on this site and still maintains some the Roman as well as Saxon walling. The best preserved Roman garrison in England is the East Anglia town of Colchester.

image source: britannia.com

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Along with roads, the Romans brought to England the vast water moving technology of aqueducts. Ruined remains of a number of aqueducts from the Roman era have been discovered in southeast England.

The image is of the famous Pont du Gard aqueduct in southern France, but it was built around the same time as the Romans were building infrastructure in Britannia.

image source: pontdugard.fr

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While the Romans adapted in small ways to their exotic environments, they largely maintained and introduced their customs of living. They would organize their living into market towns, garrisons, and, for the rich, country estates called villas. Our modern sense of the "quaint English village" has its genesis in Roman Britannia.

image source: heritage-england.co.uk

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Wine? In England? Yep. The Romans planted and cultivated vineyards in England as they did wherever they went. In the first century, each Roman legionnaire was entitled to a liter and a third of wine per day. Double that on days in which battle was to occur. It also helped that during much of the Roman period, the climate of England was hotter and drier than it would be later and is now, making it suitable to Mediterranean grape varieties.

Image source: pasorealestate.com

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When you think mining and Britain, perhaps you think of the dirty coal mines of the industrial west and north during the 19th century. But mining was a major part of Roman interest and operations in Britain -- one that benefitted the rest of the Roman Empire.

image source: factsanddetails.org

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One of the most important products of Roman aquaculture and mining was their construction of baths in places where geothermic hot springs existed. The modern English spa city of Bath grew up on the site of a Roman bath town. The city has recreated a few of the baths from the Roman period.

image source: bathtourismboard.co.uk