Carrawburgh is a settlement in
NorthumberlandNorthumberland is a ceremonial county and unitary district in the North East of England. It borders Cumbria to the west, County Durham to the south and Tyne and Wear to the south east, as well as having a border with the Scottish Borders council area to the north, and nearly eighty miles of North...
. In Roman times, it was the site of a 3½ acre (1.5 ha)
auxiliaryAuxiliaries formed the standing non-citizen corps of the Roman army of the Principate , alongside the citizen legions...
fort on
Hadrian's WallHadrian's Wall is a stone or turf and timber fortification built by the Roman Empire across the width of what is now northern England. Begun in 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the first of two fortifications built across Great Britain, the second being the Antonine Wall in what is...
called
Brocolitia,
Procolita, or
Brocolita This name is probably based on the Celtic name for the place, and one possible translation put forward is '
badgerBadgers, occasionally referred to as brocks, are short-legged, heavy-set carnivores in the weasel family, Mustelidae. There are some eight species of badger, in three subfamilies : Melinae , Mellivorinae , and Taxideinae...
holes'. The fort there was the Wall's northernmost point, and just over a mile west of the nearest
milecastleA milecastle was a small fort , a rectangular fortification built during the period of the Roman Empire. They were placed at intervals of approximately one Roman mile along several major frontiers, for example Hadrian's Wall in Great Britain , hence the name.Along that wall, milecastles were...
, Milecastle 30.
Carrawburgh is a settlement in
NorthumberlandNorthumberland is a ceremonial county and unitary district in the North East of England. It borders Cumbria to the west, County Durham to the south and Tyne and Wear to the south east, as well as having a border with the Scottish Borders council area to the north, and nearly eighty miles of North...
. In Roman times, it was the site of a 3½ acre (1.5 ha)
auxiliaryAuxiliaries formed the standing non-citizen corps of the Roman army of the Principate , alongside the citizen legions...
fort on
Hadrian's WallHadrian's Wall is a stone or turf and timber fortification built by the Roman Empire across the width of what is now northern England. Begun in 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the first of two fortifications built across Great Britain, the second being the Antonine Wall in what is...
called
Brocolitia,
Procolita, or
Brocolita This name is probably based on the Celtic name for the place, and one possible translation put forward is '
badgerBadgers, occasionally referred to as brocks, are short-legged, heavy-set carnivores in the weasel family, Mustelidae. There are some eight species of badger, in three subfamilies : Melinae , Mellivorinae , and Taxideinae...
holes'. The fort there was the Wall's northernmost point, and just over a mile west of the nearest
milecastleA milecastle was a small fort , a rectangular fortification built during the period of the Roman Empire. They were placed at intervals of approximately one Roman mile along several major frontiers, for example Hadrian's Wall in Great Britain , hence the name.Along that wall, milecastles were...
, Milecastle 30. It either used the Wall (narrow gauge on a broad base at this point) itself as its northern rampart, or was built parallel to it but detached. It certainly postdates both the Wall and the
vallum"The Vallum" is unique of any Roman frontier. It is a huge earthwork which runs from coast to coast to the south of Hadrian's Wall. It was first mentioned by Bede , who referred to a vallum, or earthern rampart, as distinct from the wall or murus. We still use the term despite the fact that the...
(which it is built across).
Only the fort's earthworks are now visible, the Wall at this point and the fort's north ramparts having been demolished for the construction of
General WadeField Marshal George Wade served as a British military commander and Commander-in-Chief of the Forces.-Early career:Wade, born in Kilavally, Westmeath in Ireland, joined the British Army in 1690 and served in Flanders in 1692, earning a promotion to Captain...
's early 18th century military road (now the
B6318The Military Road is a name given locally to part of the B6318 road in Northumberland, England, which runs from Heddon-on-the-Wall in the East to Greenhead in the West....
). The late nineteenth century archaeologist John Clayton carried out a partial excavation of the site, revealing a military bath-house outside the fort's west gate (in 1873) and the fort's south-west corner-tower (in 1876).
The
Roman Inscriptions of BritainThe Roman Inscriptions of Britain is a multi-volume index of inscriptions found in Britain from the Roman period. It is an important reference work for all scholars of Roman Britain. This monumental work was initiated by Francis Haverfield – his notebooks were bequeathed to the University of...
lists 48 inscriptions for the site. They show its garrisoning units to have been as follows:
- RIB 1550 - Hadrianic? - First Cohort
A cohort was the basic tactical unit of a Roman legion following the reforms of Gaius Marius in 107 BC.-Legionary Cohort:...
of AquitaniThe Aquitani were a people living in what is now Aquitaine, France, in the region between the Pyrenees , the Atlantic ocean and the Garonne...
- RIB 1563b - AD122-138 - First Cohort of Tungri
The Tungri were a tribe of Gaul and Germania. In a casual aside in Germania Tacitus remarks that Germani was the original tribal name of the Tungri with whom the Gauls were in contact; among the Gauls the term Germani came to be widely applied...
- End 2nd century - Cohors I Cugernorum
- RIB 1544, RIB 1553, and Notitia Dignitarum - AD213-222? and AD237 respectively - First Cohort of Batavians
The Batavians were a Germanic tribe, originally part of the Chatti, reported by Tacitus to have lived around the Rhine delta, in the area that is currently the Netherlands, "an uninhabited district on the extremity of the coast of Gaul, and also of a neighbouring island, surrounded by the ocean...
The First Cohort of
FrisiavonesThe Frisiavones is a Germanic tribe usually considered as a southern subdivision of the Frisians that came into the scope of Roman domination but mentioned by Pliny the Elder as being another tribe next to the Frisii.According to inscriptions found in Roman Britain The Frisiavones (also Frisævones...
are also attested at Brocolitia at some stage, as shown by an inscription on an altar stone, which tells us that
OptioAn optio , sometimes anglicized option , was a soldier in the Roman army who held a position similar to that of an executive officer in modern armies...
Maus had repaid a vow to the goddess Coventina. (This unit is also recorded as present at
ArdotaliaArdotalia is a Roman fort in Gamesley, near Glossop in Derbyshire, England .Ardotalia was constructed by Cohors Primae Frisiavonum—The First Cohort of Frisiavones. Evidence for the existence of this unit exists not only from the building stone found at the site but also from various diplomas and...
.) Whether this altar was the repayment of the vow is unknown.
In the small
vicusVicus can refer to:* Vicus , a culture in Peru from about 1000BC to 300AD* Vicus , a settlement or part of town in Ancient Rome...
on the low-lying marshy ground outside the fort's south-west corner have been found three religious sites, all connected with a small tributary stream of Meggie's Dene Burn, which runs three miles from Carrawburgh to empty into the
River South TyneThe River Tyne is a river in northeast England. It is formed by the confluence of two rivers: the North Tyne and the South Tyne. These two rivers converge at Warden Rock near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The Meeting of the Waters'....
near
Newbrough Newbrough is a village in Northumberland, England. The village lies on the north bank of the River South Tyne about west of Hexham.- History :...
's fort on the
StanegateThe Stanegate, or "stone road" , was an important Roman road built in what is now northern England. It linked two forts that guarded important river crossings; Corstopitum in the east, situated on Dere Street, and Luguvalium in the west...
. Nearest to the fort was an early 3rd century
MithraeumMithraeum is a place of worship for the followers of the mystery religion of Mithraism.The Mithraeum was either an adapted natural cave or cavern or an artificial building imitating a cavern. Mithraea were dark and windowless, even if they were not actually in a subterranean space or in a natural...
, of which remains can be seen onsite, and a reconstruction at Newcastle University's
Museum of AntiquitiesThe Museum of Antiquities was an archaeological museum at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England which opened in 1960.The museum is jointly run by the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne and the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is the main archaeology museum in north east...
. It was discovered in 1949. Behind it was a
nymphaeumA nymphaeum or nymphaion , in ancient Greece and Rome, was a monument consecrated to the nymphs, especially those of springs. These monuments were originally natural grottoes, which tradition assigned as habitations to the local nymphs. They were sometimes so arranged as to furnish a supply of...
(found in 1957 and dug in 1960). The third site was "Coventina's Well", a centre for worship of the Romano-British goddess
CoventinaCoventina was a Romano-British goddess of wells and springs. She is known from multiple inscriptions at one site in Northumberland county of the United Kingdom, an area surrounding a wellspring near Carrawburgh on Hadrian's Wall...
found in Clayton's 1876 dig, and from which the stream sprung. No remains of the nymphaeum or Well can now be seen onsite.
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