Archaeology Notes
Event ID 704726
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Archaeology Notes
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/704726
NS57SW 3 centred 54622 72097.
(NS 5455 7206) FORT (R) (site of)
OS 1:10000 map (1973)
No traces can now be seen of the Roman fort at Bearsden; it has long since been built upon. Parts were still extant in the 18th and 19th centuries, the S side and SW angle being best preserved at that time (cf OS 25" 1861).
Excavations by Dr D J Breeze, from 1973 to 1980, have shown that the fort, which was attached to the rear of the Antonine Wall, was 112m N-S by 100m externally and covered an area of 1.12 hectares (2.77 acres). An annexe on the E side measured c 109m N-S by possibly 55m. The ramparts, of turf construction with stone bases, were fronted by a single ditch on the S, triple ditches on the W, and a double line of ditch outside the annexe in the E.
Numerous internal buildings found included barracks, granaries, workshops and officers quarters, while a bath-house and latrine lay in the annexe. Two cobbled foundations W of the fort defences formed part of the civil buildings which are presumably of Roman date. Exploration to the E, W and S of the fort revealed no further trace of civil habitation.
No trace of the putative fortlet was found and no part of the site revealed evidence for more than the Antonine 1 period of occupation although the via principalis had been raised and widened.
Finds included a building stone inscribed to the XX Legion Valeria Victrix, pottery dateable to 142- 158 AD and a group of iron objects. Finds prior to 1946 comprise an intaglio, a second brass of Trajan and a bronze of Constantine I.
G Macdonald 1918; 1934; A S Robertson 1952; D J Breeze 1973; 1975; D R Wilson 1975; R Goodburn 1976; S S Frere 1977; 1978; R Goodman 1979
The N wall of the changing room of the bath-house (under guardianship) was examined. Only one phase of post-holes was found, though there were 2 phases in the S wall and in the gravel floor.
D J Breeze 1982
Local manufacture of pottery suggested; petrological analysis.
D J Breeze 1986
A Magnentius ae (AD 351) was found in the burn, N of the bath-house site.
J D Bateson 1990
A watching-brief on a building site S of Roman Road and c.20m beyond the likely position of the E ditches defending the annexe of the adjacent fort, revealed no structural remains to indicate a civil settlement thereabouts; two worn sherds of Roman pottery were recovered.
L J F Keppie 1994.
NS 545 720 In May 1995, GUARD undertook a resistivity survey across the line of the southern extent of the ditch of the Roman Fort at Bearsden. The intention was to determine whether the ditch had a causeway on the southern side.
Conditions were poor for the survey, the soil being loose and giving very low resistance readings. However, two areas of anomalous readings were encountered, one being interpreted as the excavation trench from the 1980s and the other a possibility for a causeway.
However, in view of the conditions, any interpretation remains tenative.
Sponsor: Historic Scotland.
I Banks 1995.
Geophysical survey of the S defences, in search of evidence for a causeway outside the S gate, was inconclusive.
L J F Keppie 1996
A study of utilitarian pottery from the Antonine Wall has distinguished small numbers of locally made vessels with North African affinities at nine or 10 forts. Similar vessels at Chester and others made by Legio XX at the Holt works depot, one with a potter's graffito in neo-Punic, suggest the presence of North Africans. Detachments sent from Britain to Pius' Mauretanian war of AD 146-9 may have brought North Africans back with them to Britain (possibly including legionary recruits or transfers, and Moorish irregulars or levies). At the western sector of the Antonine Wall, changes in the legionary work-stints may be linked to troop reductions for the war, as the mural barrier and Bearsden and Duntocher fort interiors were still unfinished. After the conflict, Bearsden and Duntocher were each partitioned to make an annexe and their internal buildings re-planned and completed; a programme of annexe construction began at other forts, and secondary alterations were made to many existing fort interiors. All may be connected with changes in units or in the composition of the returning garrisons, now perhaps mixed and augmented with small numbers of North African troops. Possible epigraphic evidence is examined.
V Swan 1999
NS 5455 7206 An archaeological evaluation was undertaken at Bearsden Baptist Church in advance of the construction of a sanctuary building. The proposed development is within a known Roman fort, which formed part of the Antonine Wall system.
The work revealed the archaeological remains of the internal rampart and associated structures, together with evidence for Roman activity within the annexe of the fort. A large number of artefacts were recovered, dominated by pottery sherds.
All archaeological features were recorded. (GUARD 896.2)
Sponsor: Bearsden Baptist Church.
J S Duncan and A Leslie 2002.
