in the Roman province
of Britannia
, dating to the 1st or 2nd century AD. Its ruins are located on the northern shore of Windermere
at Waterhead, near Ambleside
, in the English county of Cumbria
(formerly in Westmorland
). It guarded the Roman road from Brocavum (Brougham
) to Glannaventa (Ravenglass
).
The remains of the fort were described in 1915 as follows:
The excavation of the Roman fort in Borrans Field near Ambleside … was continued by Mr. R. G. Collingwood
R. G. CollingwoodRobin George Collingwood was a British philosopher and historian. He was born at Cartmel, Grange-over-Sands in Lancashire, the son of the academic W. G. Collingwood, and was educated at Rugby School and at University College, Oxford, where he read Greats...
, Fellow of Pembroke College, OxfordPembroke College, OxfordPembroke College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, located in Pembroke Square. As of 2009, Pembroke had an estimated financial endowment of £44.9 million.-History:...
, and others with much success. The examination of the rampartDefensive wallA defensive wall is a fortification used to protect a city or settlement from potential aggressors. In ancient to modern times, they were used to enclose settlements...
s, gates, and turretTurretIn architecture, a turret is a small tower that projects vertically from the wall of a building such as a medieval castle. Turrets were used to provide a projecting defensive position allowing covering fire to the adjacent wall in the days of military fortification...
s was completed; that of the main interior buildings was brought near completion, and a beginning was made on the barracksBarracksBarracks are specialised buildings for permanent military accommodation; the word may apply to separate housing blocks or to complete complexes. Their main object is to separate soldiers from the civilian population and reinforce discipline, training and esprit de corps. They were sometimes called...
, sufficient to show that they were, at least in part, made of wood.
The fort, as is now clear … , was an oblong enclosure of about 300 × 420 feet, nearly 3 acres. Round it ran a wall of roughly coursed stone 4 feet thick, with a clay ramp behind and a ditch in front. Turrets stood at its corners. Four gates gave access to it; three of them were single and narrow, while the fourth, the east gate, was double and was flanked by two guard-chambers. As usual, the chief buildings stood in a row across the interior. Building I—see plan … —was a pair of granaries
GranaryA granary is a storehouse for threshed grain or animal feed. In ancient or primitive granaries, pottery is the most common use of storage in these buildings. Granaries are often built above the ground to keep the stored food away from mice and other animals.-Early origins:From ancient times grain...
, each 66 feet long, with a space between. They were of normal plan, with external buttressButtressA buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall...
es, basement walls, and ventilating windows (not shown on plan). The space between them, 15 feet wide, contained marks of an oven or ovens (plan, B) and also some corn (plan, C) and may have been at one time used for drying grain stored in the granaries; how far it was roofed is doubtful. Building II, the Principia or PraetoriumPraetorium- Etemology :The praetorium, also spelled prœtorium or pretorium, was originally used to identify the general’s tent within a Roman Castra, Castellum, or encampment. The word originates from the name of the chief Roman magistrate, known as Praetor...
, a structure of 68 × 76 feet, much resembled the Principia at HardknottHard KnottHard Knott is a hill in the English Lake District, at the head of Eskdale.-Topography:The headwaters of the River Esk and the Duddon are separated by a ridge falling south west from the summit of Crinkle Crags. This line of high ground continues over many twists and turns for , finally meeting the...
, ten miles west of Ambleside, but possessed distinct features. As the plan shows, it had an entrance from the east, the two usual courts (EF), and the offices which usually face on to the inner court F. These offices, however, were only three in number instead of five, unless wooden partitions were used. Under the central office, the sacellum of the fort, where the standards and the altars for the official worship of the garrisonGarrisonGarrison is the collective term for a body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it, but now often simply using it as a home base....
are thought to have been kept, our fort had, at A, a sunk room or cellar, 6 feet square, entered by a stone stair. Such cellars occur at ChestersCilurnumCilurnum or Cilurvum was a fort on Hadrian's Wall mentioned in the Notitia Dignitatum. It is now identified with the fort found at Chesters near the village of Walwick, Northumberland, England...
, AesicaAesicaAesica was a Roman fort, one and a half miles north of the small town of Haltwhistle in Northumberland. It was the ninth fort on Hadrian's Wall, between Vercovicium to the east and Magnis to the west. Its purpose was to guard the Caw Gap, where the Haltwhistle Burn crosses the Wall...
, and elsewhere and probably served as strong-rooms for the regimental funds. At Chesters, the cellar had stone vaulting; at Ambleside there is no sign of this, and timber may have been used. In the northernmost room of the Principia some corn and woodwork as of a bin were noted (plan, C). The inner court F seemed to Mr. Collingwood to have been roofed; in its north end was a detached room, such as occurs at Chesters, of unknown use, which accords rather ill with a roof. In the colonnadeColonnadeIn classical architecture, a colonnade denotes a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building....
round the outer court E were vestiges of a hearth or oven (plan, B). Building III (70 × 80 feet) is that usually called the commandant's house; it seems to show the normal plan of rooms arranged round a cloisterCloisterA cloister is a rectangular open space surrounded by covered walks or open galleries, with open arcades on the inner side, running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth...
enclosing a tiny open space. In buildings II and III, at D, traces were detected as of ditches and walling belonging to a fort older and probably smaller than that revealed by the excavation generally.
Small finds include coins of Faustina Iunior
Faustina the YoungerAnnia Galeria Faustina Minor , Faustina Minor or Faustina the Younger was a daughter of Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius and Roman Empress Faustina the Elder. She was a Roman Empress and wife to her maternal cousin Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius...
, Iulia DomnaJulia DomnaJulia Domna was a member of the Severan dynasty of the Roman Empire. Empress and wife of Roman Emperor Lucius Septimius Severus and mother of Emperors Geta and Caracalla, Julia was among the most important women ever to exercise power behind the throne in the Roman Empire.- Family background...
, and ValensValensValens was the Eastern Roman Emperor from 364 to 378. He was given the eastern half of the empire by his brother Valentinian I after the latter's accession to the throne...
, Samian of about AD. 80 and later, including one or two bits of German Samian, a silver spoon, some glass, iron, and bronze objects, a leaden basin (?), and seven more leaden sling-bullets. It now seems clear that the fort was established about the time of AgricolaGnaeus Julius AgricolaGnaeus Julius Agricola was a Roman general responsible for much of the Roman conquest of Britain. His biography, the De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae, was the first published work of his son-in-law, the historian Tacitus, and is the source for most of what is known about him.Born to a noted...
(AD 80–5), though perhaps in smaller dimensions than those now visible, and was held till at least AD 365. Mr. Collingwood inclines to the view that it was abandoned after AD 85 and reoccupied under or about the time of HadrianHadrianHadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
. The stratification of the turrets [12] seems to show that it was destroyed once or twice in the second or third centuries, but the evidence is not wholly clear in details. The granaries seem to have been rebuilt once and the rooms of the commandant's house mostly have two floors.