The Roman Map of Britain Bovio Holt, Denbighshire

Bovio (AI 469₃ Iter II)

    Bovio is recorded as ten miles south of Deva Chester. The legionary tilery near Holt (sj4054) is on Margary 660 about two miles west of Watling Street Margary 6a (chester-wroxeter). For lack of a more suitable site the name has been assigned to Holt.

   PNRB explains Bovio as "cow-place", a curious name, the same as Bomio (for Bovio) of AI 484₃ Iter xii. Bovio is listed as m.p. x beyond Deva (Chester-on-Dee) with another m.p. xx beyond to Medialano (Whitchurch). The distance from Chester-on-Dee to Whitchurch adds up to thirty m.p., but the actual mileage along Margary 6a is somewhat less than twenty m.p. The assignment to Holt suggests a diversion from the known road westward along Margary 660 which would make for something close to ten as recorded. Returning from Holt along Margary 660 and south on Margary 6a would again put the mileage at tolerably close to the xv m.p. suggested by Rivet as an amendment to the manuscript's xx.
   More recently the Roman settlement at Tilston has become a candidate for Bovio, but the mileage isn't easily explained.
    An explanation of the connection between the name Bovio and the site at Holt was not offered by Rivet nor PNRB. But there is a connection long recognized by primitive peoples endeavoring to make bricks (and I presume tiles). Cow manure is used to plasticize the mixing of the ingredients and purportedly aids in the water resistance of the finished product. Cow manure is also the ingredient of choice over horse manure. The presence industrial scale quantities of manure would make the site immediately identifiable as the 'cow place' to any in the area.  Perhaps (in a jocular vein) this explains its position off the main road.