Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.

[MonsGraupius]

Cartimandua!

I think given the conquest of the Brigantes that occurred after, they'd have to be pretty gullible to trust the Romans. They knew the Romans were a threat and I've no doubt they would have looked for opportunities to get rid of the threat.

And anyone suggesting that the friends of Romans are in the north so that is where they would head ...

St Albans is to the north of London (21 miles north of it) - it is not in the north. It was a municipium, so the people there were certainly 'friends of Romans'.

I missed the new text that must have become available with Catus heading to St.Albans ... or is further North to the Brigantes? Or is the old one still correct, that the first thing a Roman governor does when threatened is to head to safety and friends in Gaul?

the most obvious is the valley taken by the old Didcot-Compton railway which would locate the battle at this point: Battle Site... she'd have had an extremely difficult time getting through these hills.

It appears to be an interesting site on the map. We might guess that Boudica and co had headed north-west through the Chilterns via High Wycombe or Tring and taken the old Iknield Way south-west to try and outflank the Romans in Silchester, then crossed the river at Wallingford and moved further west, perhaps with Suetonius retreating ahead of them and drawing them south into the 'defile' below Blewbury Down.

The scenario I developed is that Boudica might have pursued Suetonius. The Thames was defended as far as Goring ... so Boudica would need to cross, from Wallingford to Oxford (higher up is easy to cross, but ford names disappear suggesting there were other reasons making it difficult).
 
She then needs a way to cross the ridgeway hills. We need a sizeable valley, suitable for 10,000 fitting the description and the site I suggested looks good for a number of reasons, but I think given it is farmed, if there had been a battle, there would be some Roman military artefacts found in the area. I could argue using "Pharsalus" defence: where we know there was a sizeable Roman battle and where, but no artefacts have been.

However, I live at the other end of the country, at my current rate of progress, I'm never going to do anything more with it and there are good sites where artefacts have been found which I think have more credibility.

That might work, although it does require considerable long distance logistics and strategic planning on the part of the Britons. Why an East-Anglian tribal confederation would trek all that way (60-70 miles from London) just to fight a battle on ground of their enemy's choosing seems a mystery...

Yes, I agree. Which is part of the reason I've given up on the site ... it is too far away to be credible.

Google Maps has a useful drone view of the area, taken from a point just south-west of Churn Farm. It looks to be fairly open gentle country, not the sort of elevation that would daunt Britons who had already crossed the Chilterns and the Thames! This view from ground level on the track of the old railway (I think) does not suggest any more formidible terrain.

It's a great location, because the (presumably) iron-age grim's ditch forms a defensive line to either side, meaning boudica could not easily outflank Suetonius.

It's very flat farmland ... a valley ... just what the Romans like. At Churn farm, the valley narrows making that the ideal front line and Churn Hill  would have made a great encampment, meaning that the path to the NW of Churn Hill would have been a fortified bank along the slope. There are several mounds and tumuli, that may present the place where the Roman dead were buried (but hardly unusual in the area). The site is overlooked by the Roman temple (giving thanks to the victory) and if you are very imaginative, there are so many banks and ditches, that you can find numerous potential other "camps" and "Roman defences". There is even name evidence for a battle in the area ... which if nothing else, shows it was an area of repeated fighting.

The railway line is particularly important ... because it demonstrates that a large army with numerous carts, as we are told, could have taken that path across the hills.

There is an obvious flat area to the NW over to Chilton, ... in all I was quite enthusiastic when I first found it, and sure that if I just went there I'd find something or at least someone had found something from the battle. But no!

Without artefacts from a battle, and with other sites having artefacts, unless they turn up, the site is just a lot of incidental conjecture with no substance and if you allow such a distance from the Iceni, then there will undoubtedly be many more sites that are just as good.

However, I am still sure Suetonius initially heads south over the Thames, defends that and we have to develop from that starting position.