OS1/21/6/13

List of names as written Various modes of spelling Authorities for spelling Situation Description remarks
ROMAN WALL STATION (Site of) [Balmuildy] 001.10

Continued entries/extra info

[Page] 13
County of Lanark Parish of Cadder

(Plan 1.10.9.2)

"The Roman station of Bemulie stood on a gentle acclivity overlooking the river Kelvin at a point where it formerly intersected the line of the Wall. The site of the ancient fort is traversed by the highway from Glasgow to Balmore, and occupied by a cluster of buildings called Balmulie or Balmuldie farms: perhaps this is the proper name which should now be made use of; but as it seems to be a corruption of the old designation, we prefer resisting, in this instance, the innovation of the change.
Both from its size and the number of its entrenchments, this station seems to have been one of the most important in the Wall. At the present day the vestiges of its works are all to be numbered among the things that were, But hear what Gordon said of it some hundred and twenty years ago: - "On the south side of the Kelvin the great [ruins] of Bemulie begin to appear, and show it originally to have been a magnificent place. In the west end of the village are to be seen four rows of ramparts with as many ditches between them; but on the other side they are more obscure and flat. Within the area of these ditches are great foundations of stone buildings, but so embarrassed with the cottages built upon them, that one cannot form a right idea of the whole. Under the ground there are several arched vaults, as the country people inform me, with hollow squared stones by way of conduits for bringing in of water from the river Kelvin." The cottages here alluded to have disappeared equally with the vestiges of the ramparts and ditches. According to Roy the area of this station was nearly an exact square of about 450 feet, the military way passed through it, and its distance from East Kilpatrick was about 4600 yards __ a trifle more than 2 2/3 miles. The position it occupied was by no means a very strong one, but the fort was conveniently situated for protecting that part of the Wall through which the water of the Kelvin passed."
Extract from "Caledonia Romana", page 311 and 312

Transcriber's notes

Also on the page is a signature which looks like J. B. Capt. D.R.

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MarionQuinn

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