Pricing Change
New pricing for orders of material from this site will come into place shortly. Charges for supply of digital images, digitisation on demand, prints and licensing will be altered.
Upcoming Maintenance
Please be advised that this website will undergo scheduled maintenance on the following dates:
Thursday, 9 January: 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Thursday, 23 January: 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Thursday, 30 January: 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM
During these times, some functionality such as image purchasing may be temporarily unavailable. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
Trial Trench
Date 1967
Event ID 551435
Category Recording
Type Trial Trench
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/551435
Excavation trenches across the enclosure ditch of a Roman Temporary Camp at Bellie by J K St Joseph. Manuscripts from the Barri Jones collection.
(Area: NJ 355 613) A probable Roman, V-shaped ditch, extending 975' on a straight N-S alignment was excavated in 1967. It was 7' wide and 3' deep where best preserved, had been cut in loose gravel and the east side was consistently steeper than the west. The filling showed that the ditch had lain open until silt and earth accummulated to the angle of rest. The silt was overlaid by 2' of plough-soil, presumbably post 18th century. Since bottle fragments dated to between 1770 and 1780 lay between the separate layers. No gate was found. The ditch is well-sited to from the east side of a defended enclosure, centred on the area NJ 355 613, and and possibly as large as 900' by 1200' if allowance is made for river erosion. It would be protected on the west by the Spey and on the east by a marshy hollow formerly a morass. Position and profile of ditch suggest strongly that the site is Roman, in which case it would be 'a Flavian camp, either Stracathro-type or '30 acre'.
J K St Joseph 1969.
