Magnesium

On arrival in AD 50-55, the Romans chose to site their garrison within or close to an existing Iron Age settlement near the Margidunum roundabout, now Bingham.

Although the army had moved on by about AD73 the town of Margidunum grew around the site of the garrison. In the immediately surrounding areas, villas were built at Newton, Car Colston and, possibly, East Bridgford, while in Bingham a substantial farm, if not a villa, has been found on the site of Carnarvon Primary School.

Excavations on Long Acre, behind the Chesterfield Arms, revealed a Roman cemetery and ditched field boundaries that might have belonged to a farm nearby, but is now under housing. In the rest of the parish there appears to have been a change from stock rearing to arable farming.

The people in long-established British settlements at Parson’s Hill, Granby Lane and Lower Brackendale adopted Roman ways of living, while new farms grew up in several other places.

A single atom of Magnesium is found at the centre of every chlorophyll molecule. Without magnesium photosynthesis could not take place, and life as we know it would not exist.

As magnesium ignites easily in air and burns with a bright light, it’s used in flares, fireworks and sparklers.

Magnesium hydroxide (milk of magnesia), sulfate (Epsom salts), chloride and citrate are all used in medicine.