Publication Account

Date 17 December 2011

Event ID 923468

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/923468

The three camps at Pathhead lie on gently sloping ground just to the west of the A68, on the line of Dere Street. The two camps at Woodhead lie 1km to the north-west. The three intersect one another, with camp II tucked into the corner of camp I, utilising parts of its north-east and southeast sides. These two were first recorded as cropmarks in 1956 by St Joseph (1958: 88).

Camp I measures 530m from north-west to southeast by 390m transversely, enclosing 20.5ha (just over 50 acres). Two entrance gaps are visible on the south-west side protected by tituli; a probable entrance gap can be observed in the north-west side. St Joseph excavated on the camp in 1956, and although he recorded that the ditch measured up to 1.3m wide and 0.6m deep, it is not clear where his trenches were located (RCAHMS St Joseph Collection: Notebook 1). He also recorded a titulus in the north-west side (RCAHMS St Joseph Collection: DC 39405), but this could not be confirmed during appraisal of the available air photographs.

Some 160m of the ditch on the north-east side was excavated in 1997, recording that it was V-shaped with an irregular ‘ankle-breaker’ slot, up to 2.75m wide (3.8m wide in one trench) and up to 1.1m deep (Leslie and Will 1998). In places it appears to have been deliberately filled in, whereas elsewhere the ditch appears to have silted up naturally. Some 5–6m inside the camp, four figure-ofeight features were recorded and identified as Roman field ovens or hearths. The camp overlaps two probable settlement enclosures (not depicted on illus 190), but the relationship between these and the camp was not established by excavation (Leslie and Will 1998).

Camp II , occupying the east corner of camp I and sharing part of the adjacent north-east and south-east sides, measures almost 300m from north-west to south-east by almost 130m, enclosing 3.9ha (9.7 acres). A titulus is visible on the south-west side of the camp, but there is no apparent break in the ditch at this point, suggesting that the camp may have had more than one phase of use, or that there may have been a ditched feature across the entrance which would blur the cropmarks (similar to that found through excavation at Eskbank). Another possibility is that a later field drain may have been inserted into the ditch, as was the case with parts of the excavated ditch of Pathhead I on its north-east side (Leslie and Will 1998).

Camp III lies to the south of the other two, with its north-west side intersecting their south-eastern portion. It was discovered a few years later (St Joseph 1969: 107), and parts of only two sides have been recorded as cropmarks: 720m of the north-west side and 735m of the south-west with the rounded western corner between them. Nothing has been recorded east of the A68, but it is noteworthy that the road here bends where it meets the north-west side of this camp. This may be for an entrance or corner, although this is speculation. The length of the two known sides suggests an extremely large camp of at least 55ha (135 acres), and it has been grouped with the so-called ‘165- acre’ series on Dere Street. No clear entrances have been recorded; a possible titulus is visible on the south-west side, but this may relate to other cropmarks close to the side of the field where the Laird’s Entry road runs south-west from Crichton Farm. Other linear cropmarks are visible to the south-east, but none can be confidently ascribed to this camp. The cropmark to the south of the Laird’s Entry is on a slightly different alignment, but this could be due to a change at the possible gate. If the camp is 165 acres (66ha) in size (as proposed by St Joseph, 1969: 107; see above, Chapter 9), then the south-west side could measure some 900m and the titulus would be located less than 200m from the south corner. Excavations on the north-west side in 1969 revealed a ditch which was V-shaped, up to 3.6m wide and 1.5m deep (St Joseph 1973: 216).

R H Jones.