Cornhill

NT03NW 37 centred 0215 3574

There is nothing to be seen on the ground.

Visited by OS (RD), 25 July 1972.

NT 022 357. Roman Temporary Camp, Cornhill (Site): Crop-markings on air photographs (CUCAP nos. DN 28, BGB 50-1 and 53, BGZ 43 and BVB 100-1) disclose the presence of a large Roman temporary camp on gently sloping arable ground bordering the right bank of the River Clyde. At its greatest extent the camp measured about 470m from NE to SW by 360m transversely and enclosed an area of approximately 16.9 ha (41.7 acres). However, the existence of a ditch running across the interior from NE to SW at a distance of about 70m from the SE side indicates that at some time, presumably in a second phase of occupation, the camp was of smaller extent. The gaps faintly discernible in the two stretches of ditch on the SE may possibly mark the positions of gates.

RCAHMS 1978, visited November 1973.

Sited on a west facing slope on the east bank of the River Clyde, the cropmark camps at Cornhill were first photographed in 1949 by St Joseph and fully recognised following further aerial survey in the 1970s (St Joseph 1976: 6–7; RCAHMS 1978a: 128). Camp I measures 474m from NNE to SS W by 365m and enclosed 17.1ha (just over 42 acres). Entrance gaps protected by tituli are visible in the NNE and SS W sides. The camp has been reduced in a second phase of use, with the reduced camp measuring 474m from NNE to SSW by around 290m and enclosing 13.8ha (34 acres). An entrance gap with a titulus is visible in the reducing ESE earthwork, and it is likely that the camp shared the NNE and SS W entrance gaps with camp I, together with an, as yet unidentified, entrance gap in the WNW side of the camp.

R H Jones