Glenlochar - Water Of Ken
Roman Road (Roman)
Site Name Glenlochar - Water Of Ken
Classification Roman Road (Roman)
Canmore ID 76176
Site Number NX76SW 30
NGR NX 73 64
NGR Description NX 7499 6398 to NX 7410 6499
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/76176
- Council Dumfries And Galloway
- Parish Crossmichael
- Former Region Dumfries And Galloway
- Former District Stewartry
- Former County Kirkcudbrightshire
NX76SW 30 7499 6398 to 7410 6499. RX 15.
See also NX76NW 31.
A Roman road is plainly visible on an air photograph taken by J K St Joseph issuing from the N gate of the Antonine fort at Glenlochar (NX76SW 1, q.v). On 6 May 1953 Crawford set out to follow it through the grounds of Glenlochar House. A stony ridge is plainly visible in the cornfield between Glenlochar House and the bridge, passing beneath a large tree which is shown on the OS 6-inch map. The alignment passes through the house itself, and the low, raised mound is visible, following a slightly different alignment, immediately N of it, on the W running parallel to but converging towards the drive. As there is no evidence of the continuation of the road northwards, it is suggested that the modern road from Castle Douglas to New Galloway (A 713, running from NX 7499 6397 to NX 7410 6499 on this sheet) may be on the line of a Roman road, the road from Glenlochar fort being merely a branch.
O G S Crawford 1954.
NX 7348 6463 to NX 7348 6479 The Roman road is visible as a slight raised mound.
NX 7348 6479 to NX 7348 6499 There is no trace of the Roman road.
Visited by OS July 1968.
NX 7348 6463 to NX 7348 6499 The only stretch of road which could be traced with any certainty was from its exit from Glenlochar fort (NX 7347 6463) to near Glenlochar House (NX 7346 6478) where a very slight, spread mound is visible on the ground and as a distinct, light cropmark on the aerial cropmarks. From Glenlochar House (NX 7345 6479) a slight hollow about 3.0m wide extends N for some 90.0m until it meets the metalled drive at NX 7348 6492. Beyond that there is no further trace. Nor is there any evidence to support the view that a Roman road existed from Castle Douglas to New Galloway. However, if such a road did exist, it is likely (as suggested by Crawford) to have followed much the same course as that taken by the modern road.
Visited by OS (JP) 20 March 1975.
NX 7348 6463 to NX 7348 6499 This branch of the Roman road leads from the Roman fort at Glenlochar (NX76SW 2) to the main Roman road. It joins the main road at NX 7368 6557 (see NX76NW 31).
Information from RCAHMS (SDW), May 2003.
Note (April 2017)
First contact
Roman soldiers first entered southern Scotland in the later 1st century AD – tree-ring dating of timbers used to build the fort at Carlisle demonstrates that it was built in about AD 72/3. This would have been accompanied by campaigns in the north prior to the push into southern Scotland which came later in the AD 70s. Soldiers on campaign were housed in temporary camps – these were enclosures with a bank and ditch protecting their perimeter, with soldiers housed in rows of tents in the interior. We have evidence for a number of such temporary camps in south-west Scotland, but their distribution is patchy, showing how many must still remain undetected. A cluster of camps, together with a Roman fort, were recorded from the air in the dry summer of 1949 on the east bank of the River Dee at Glenlochar by Kenneth St Joseph, a pioneer of aerial archaeology based at Cambridge University. The buried remains of ditches reveal themselves as darker markings in the crops growing above, with lighter marks showing the roads within the fort, where crop growth is stunted by the stones below. The site lies at a strategic point right next to the modern bridge (carrying the B 795 road) at one of the few suitable crossing points of the River Dee in this area. At least five camps surround the fort, further emphasing the importance of the location for the Roman army.
Evidence and record
From the air, the familiar ‘playing-card’ shape of the fort can be seen, with multiple ditches around the outside and the gridded pattern of roads within. Lines of dark marks outside the fort to the east reveal the quarry-pits for the Roman road which connected this fort to other Roman bases in the south-west. Small-scale trenches cut across the site in 1952 (this style of excavation was in vogue at the time), showed a 1st century fort (probably dating to the AD 70s) followed by later forts during the Antonine occupation of Scotland in the AD 140s-150s. Whilst other Roman sites are suspected in the area, of note are the number of camps sited around the fort. As some overlap one another and could not have been contemporary, they probably date to multiple Roman incursions in both the phases of campaigning in the 1st century as well as in the 2nd, and probably housed troops “on the march” in south-west Scotland. Marching camps usually reveal more on excavation and geophysical survey than they do from the air, but the southern-most camp displays a higgledy-piggledy array of dark marks in its interior. Evidence from other Roman camps would suggest that these were pits (including, potentially toilet-pits) and also Roman ovens. Some lines can be discerned in the remains, and these may hint at the location of rows of tents (the rubbish pits outside).
The two-week excavation in 1952 suggested that the first fort at Glenlochar was terminated through a ‘wholesale conflagration’. Whether this was as a result of Roman abandonment or enemy action is not possible to determine. Glenlochar still has much to tell us about the Romans in south-west Scotland.
Dr Rebecca Jones - Head of Archaeology and World Heritage
