stirling-1963-vol-1/05_145

Transcription

No. 122 -- ROMAN MONUMENTS -- No. 122
of them were about 20 ft. wide, while the fourth gate, in
the E. side, was only half as wide. This implies three
double passageways and one single. Inside the fort,
which faced E., the buildings re known in some detail.
The praetentura contained eight buildings (I-VIII on
Fig. 47), all 170 ft. in length but varying from 26 to
31 ft. in width, with the possible addition of two narrower
buildings placed one on either side of the via praetoria.
No trace of the internal arrangements was found in any
of these buildings, nor any evidence as to their purpose,
but the existence of a wider room at one end (the
centurion's quarters) immediately identifies Numbers
III and IV as barrack-blocks, while the rest may have
been barracks, stables or storehouses. The principal
buildings comprise a headquarters building (XI) with
a colonnaded front courtyard, cross-hall and regimental
shrine ¹ flanked by administrative offices; the command-
ant's house (XIII) with a private suite of baths as at
Mumrills; a granary (X); and two buildings of uncertain
purpose (IX and XII). In the retentura the only recognis-
able building was another barrack-block (XIV), in this
case lying transversely to the main axis of the fort. The
type of garrison for which this fort was designed is not
obvious from the plan, nor is there any evidence from
inscriptions, but if the praetentura in fact housed four
barracks (III, IV, V and VI) and six stables, then
sufficient room is available in the retentura for the remain-
ing four barracks and two stables which would be
required to make up the accommodation for a cavalry
unit 500 strong (ala quingenaria). Outside the fort the
level ground to the N. was converted into a fortified
annexe by prolonging the W. ditches of the fort north-
wards as far as the edge of the plateau, and by erecting a
rampart, 20 ft. thick, behind them. Access to this annexe
was provided by an entrance, 15 ft. in width, situated
about half-way along the rampart. Trenching in the area
in 1899-1900 failed to reveal the native fort (No. 82) in
the NE. corner of the plateau, and only brought to light
the ends of three roads which met at the N. gate of the
fort, and the triple ditches shown on the plan opposite
the same gate. In his re-interpretation of the excavation
report, Macdonald maintained that these ditches must
belong to some entirely different defensive system from
that represented by the fort. ² On the other hand, the
possibility that they defined the E. side of the annexe
cannot lightly be dismissed, since they lie parallel to the
W. defences of the annexe and terminate on the S. in
a manner which suggests that they were deliberately
designed to give passage to one of the branch roads
issuing from the N. gate of the fort. This problem is one
of many which can only be resolved by further explora-
tion. But the fact that the barracks were built of stone
and not of timber, and the abundance of Antonine
pottery from the site, leave no room for doubt that the
North Fort, as it may best be termed, was of Antonine
date.
In contrast to the North Fort, the southernmost
enclosure, or "South Camp" (Fig. 47, B), was only
partially excavated in 1899-1900 and has now been
largely destroyed by the railway and the foundries, only
the NE. angle standing free at the present time.
Unfortunately the published plan of this enclosure is
not to be trusted, as the surveyor himself admitted, ³ for
reasons which are at once apparent when Fig. 47 is
compared with the original survey now preserved in
Dollar Park Museum, Falkirk. The lines of the defences
were by no means so thoroughly investigated as might be
supposed from Fig. 47, not all the hachured portions
being actually verified, while the same plan fails to
record another series of ditches, believed to be of earlier
date, which was discovered running in a different
direction from those surrounding the enclosure. As
Macdonald observed, ⁴ it seems probable that, as it
stands, the plan of the "South Camp" embodies two
distinct elements, namely another annexe of the North
(Antonine) Fort superimposed on an earlier fort, and
that there was yet a third work, not represented on the
plan, on a different orientation from these. ⁵ Within the
"South Camp" there were found a bath-building which
exhibited at least two structural periods (Fig. 47,
XVII); a considerable portion of another stone building
containing a hypocaust-chamber (XVIII); and frag
mentary remains of other structures of stone (XV and
XVI) or of wattle-and-daub. Buildings XVII and XVIII
were in a very much better state of preservation than
any of the buildings of the North Fort, one wall of
XVIII being 70 ft. in length and 3-6 ft. in height, and
Macdonald assigned them both to the Agricolan period
on the grounds that they "lay at a much lower level than
the admittedly Antonine structures", and that amongst
the relics from the "South Camp" there was much
1st-century Samian ware. He also suggested that the
orientation of building XVIII, which is out of alinement
with anything else, probably corresponded to that of the
set of ditches omitted from the plan. These inferences,
however, do not rest on any very solid foundation. In
the first place it is inconceivable that the ground level
can have risen appreciably between the Agricolan and
Antonine periods, and some other explanation must
therefore be sought for the difference in level to which
Macdonald refers, and which in some places amounted
to more than 6 ft. Nor is the true explanation difficult
to find. For the presence of hypocaust pillars, and
indications of an external flight of steps, show that what
actually survived of buildings XVII and XVIII were
simply the heated basements which in both cases had

1 Aerial photographs (Nos. DH 20-1 in the C.U.C.A.P.)
clearly show that the back wall of this shrine was not flush with
the W. wall of the principia, as it appears in Fig. 47, but
projected several feet beyond it.
2 J.R.S., ix (1919), 126-38.
3 Ibid., 129, note 2.
4 Ibid., 129.
5 At the NW. corner the two inner ditches of the "South
Camp" unite with the outer ditch of the Antonine fort in a
manner which suggests that they are both annexe ditches. The
third and fourth ditches, on the other hand, do not conform
to the inner pair and clearly belong to a different, and pre-
sumably earlier, system. Macdonald's assumption that an
annexe would not possess more than a single ditch is invalid,
as the Glenlochar and Newstead annexes show.

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