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Fordoun House
Cropmark(S) (Period Unknown), Enclosure(S) (Period Unknown), Temporary Camp (Roman)(Possible)
Site Name Fordoun House
Classification Cropmark(S) (Period Unknown), Enclosure(S) (Period Unknown), Temporary Camp (Roman)(Possible)
Alternative Name(s) Roman Camps
Canmore ID 36484
Site Number NO77NW 9
NGR NO 7319 7700
NGR Description Centred at NO 7319 7700
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/36484
- Council Aberdeenshire
- Parish Fordoun
- Former Region Grampian
- Former District Kincardine And Deeside
- Former County Kincardineshire
NO77NW 9 732 770.
There was an extensive Roman camp near the mansion of Fordoun (Fordoun House: NO 732 770). There are still traces of the NW angle and the N and W sides. The Luther Water used to run through the W side and there are several springs on the E side of the camp.
It is known locally as the 'West Camp': to the E there is a 'very complete Roman fort' (Medieval moat - NO77NW 4), supposed to have been the praetorium of the camp.
G Chalmers 1801.
The camp had been defended by triangular forts, at the different corners, by outposts, and by a deep morass 'at the lower extremity'.
New Statistical Account (NSA) 1845.
Crawford believed that a very strong case had been made out for a marching camp, probably of two phases and over-lapping (which would account for the 'triangular forts,' etc.) although he found nothing to substantiate this theory by ground inspection or local enquiry in 1939.
O G S Crawford 1949.
No trace was found by ground inspection or by local enquiry.
Visited by OS (R L) 5 December 1967.
Note (1982)
Fordoun House NO 73 76 NO77NW 9
Nothing can be seen of earthworks recorded in the eighteenth century in the vicinity of Fordoun House. There is no evidence to support their identification as Roman temporary camps, but to the S of Fordoun House air photography has revealed linear cropmarks and rig-and-furrow cultivation.
RCAHMS 1982
(Crawford 1949, 103-4)
Publication Account (17 December 2011)
Melville observed the nearby moat at Fordoun, claiming that it was a ‘Roman Castellum’ (Macdonald 1939: 249), and the Rev. Alexander Leslie, writer of the old Statistical Account, described the area as a Roman camp (Sinclair 1792: iv, 498). Knox drew a camp with six gates protected by tituli on his Map of the Basin of Tay (1850), and, later, Crawford, drawing on the antiquarian accounts, was keen on the area as a possible site for a camp (1949: 103–4). Recent air photographs reveal a number of linear cropmarks in the area, but none gives any clear suggestion of R oman origin. However, the Luther Water has clearly been canalised since Knox’s map, and just west of Fordoun House there is a rounded corner with straight sides, resembling a camp, although its classification cannot currently be proven.
R H Jones.
