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Archaeology Notes

Event ID 679378

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/679378

NN92NW 3 9168 2878 to 918 285.

(NN 918 285) Roman Camp (R) (Site of).

(NN 9168 2878) Redoubt (R)

OS 6" map (1901)

(NN 9168 2878) Earthwork (NR)

OS 6" map (1958)

There is very little of this camp to be seen, the most complete part of it is a redoubt north of the road. The extent of the camp was pointed out by Mr Stewart who remembered its form 30 years ago when the trenches were not so much defaced as at the present time.

The 'redoubt' and the alleged marching-camp both first appear in a plan of 1778 where the 'redoubt' is marked as an excrescence on the larger camp. The existing remains of the 'redoubt' consist of a bank 70 yds. long with a ditch on the north and two rounded corners, and the remains of two other sides, 23 yds long on the east. In the middle of the north side the bank is broken, more or less, by a gap 10 yds. wide, from the east end of which runs a stony bank, 8 yds long, towards the interior. It is possibly Roman, but attached 'redoubts' have no place in the design of a Roman marching camp, even supposing the one here to be authenticated.

Richmond and McIntyre suggest that the alleged Roman camp is native. The earthworks were, in 1936, "scarcely visible to an untrained eye".

Name Book 1860; O G S Crawford 1949; I A Richmond and J McIntyre 1936

The only possible remains of the alleged Roman Camp are:-

(1) a 100.0m length (NE/SW) of broken, turf-covered walling centred on NN 9140 2852; but this is almost certainly the remains of an old field wall. (2) A ditch about 20.0m long x 6.0m wide x 1.0m deep with a bank 0.6m high on its west side, centred on NN 9193 2857 and (3) a slight terrace centred on NN 9209 2850, on the north face of a promontory.

The irregular perimeter outline of the earthwork encloses an area of rough undulating ground and it seems hardly likely that it could have been a Roman Camp.

The remains of the 'redoubt' are generally as described by Crawford although there is no break in the north side. It is set back from the steep south slope above the Reiver Almond, at the foot of a steep scarp to the south to which it may originally have been connected prior to the construction of the modern road. There is no evidence to suggest that it was associated with or attached to the alleged camp and its date and purpose could not be ascertained from ground observations.

Surveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (RD) 23 December 1966.

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