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Carey

Temporary Camp (Roman)

Site Name Carey

Classification Temporary Camp (Roman)

Alternative Name(s) Abernethy

Canmore ID 27933

Site Number NO11NE 27

NGR NO 17319 16458

NGR Description Centred NO 17319 16458

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/27933

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Perth And Kinross
  • Parish Abernethy (Perth And Kinross)
  • Former Region Tayside
  • Former District Perth And Kinross
  • Former County Perthshire

Archaeology Notes

NO11NE 27 centred NO 17391 16458

Centred at NO 17391 16458 is a Roman camp covering an area of 116 acres. Rhomboidal rather than rectangular on plan, its axial dimensions are 2160' N-S by 2290' (659 by 698m). No earth-works remain but air reconnaissance has revealed the greater part of the E and S sides and considerable lengths of the W, the only straight side, and N. Two gates with titula are known on the S side while the N clearly had two gates, the westernmost being proved by digging. The E and W sides each had a solitary central gate. A ditch section on the S side yielded from near the bottom of the silt filling a minute fragment of South Gaulish samian, probably Dr 27 and dated to the late 1st century.

J K St Joseph 1973.

No trace exists in flat pasture and arable fields.

Visited by OS (S F S) 1 May 1975.

Nothing is visible of this 116-acre (47ha) Roman temporary camp which lies in an area of flat arable and pasture fields.

Visited by RCAHMS (JRS), 25 November 1996.

Activities

Publication Account (17 December 2011)

The camp at Carey, near Abernethy, was first recorded from the air by St Joseph in 1971 (1973: 219–20). It lies on a level terrace immediately south of the River Earn, close to where it meets the River Tay. The fortress and camps at Carpow lie some 3km to the ENE. The embankment for the railway line from Perth to Ladybank cuts through the northern part of the camp, and the Carey Stank, a small burn now canalised, also cuts across it.

Parts of all four sides of the camp have been recorded as cropmarks. It is rhomboid in shape, measuring some 670m from WSW to ENE by around 663m transversely, enclosing 44.6ha (110 acres). A change of direction in the ENE side close to where the railway line crosses probably indicates the position of an entrance gap, and there are two entrance gaps in the SSE side, protected by tituli; it probably had six in total. St Joseph placed trenches through the NNW, ENE and SSE sides in 1971 and 1972, recording that the ditch was 1.1m deep and 2.3m wide on the NN W side, but only 0.8m deep and 1.5m wide on the SSE side (RCA HMS St Joseph Collection: Notebook 6). A small fragment of samian was found in the ditch on the SSE side, identified as south Gaulish and probably late 1st century (St Joseph 1973: 220). More recent attempts to locate this sherd have proved unsuccessful (Dunwell and Keppie 1995: 60n).

Owing to its size and morphology, the camp is regularly compared with the camp at Dunning, some 15km to the west (St Joseph 1973: 218–20).

R H Jones

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