stirling-1963-vol-1/05_151

Transcription

No. 125 -- ROMAN MONUMENTS -- No. 125
though none of hollow tracks. The bridge mentioned in
1723 ¹ was probably at this point. The hollow tracks that
occur still further downstream, by the bridge that carries
a by-road leading to Plean (835837), are half a mile from
the Roman crossing, and may or may not be relevant
here; but it seems clear that, once the Roman causeway
had sunk into the moss in the Tor Wood (supra), that
whole section of the route would have lost its utility, and
traffic, diverted from it, would have had a look for other
crossing-places below the gully. Further N., on the
Bannock Burn, the steep, winding lane that serves the
ford at "Beaton's Mill" (No. 351) may well perpetuate a
mediaeval hollow track.

NS 78 NE; NS 79 NE, SE; NS 87 NE; NS 88 NW, SW, SE
Various dates from 1955 to 1959

125. Supposed Roman Communications between
Clydesdale and the Antonine Wall. It has often
been suggested that a Roman road branched off the
Clydesdale route in the vicinity of Carluke, and ran
thence northwards to the Antonine Wall. As the follow-
ing synopsis will show, no convincing evidence has ever
been produced in support of this supposed road, and
widely different opinions have been entertained regard-
ing its precise course.
(i) Sibbald (1707) ² merely mentions a local tradition
that a Roman road ran from Carnwath to Camelon.
(ii) Gordon's map (1726) ³ marks the course of the
Roman trunk road from Carlisle reasonably accurately
as far as Biggar. But beyond Biggar he projects it more or
less in a straight line through Carnwath to Watling
Lodge (No. 114), where a gap in the Antonine Wall gave
passage to the Roman road that led northwards to the
fort of Camelon and thence into Perthshire. Gordon
was apparently unaware that the Biggar road continued
in the direction of Inveresk, nor did he know of the branch
leading through Clydesdale to the W. end of the
Antonine Wall, and in linking Biggar with Camelon it
can only be assumed that he was either following the
local tradition referred to by Sibbald, or was tying up, in
the most direct manner possible, what he conceived to be
two loose ends in the Roman road-system.
(iii) Roy (c. 1755) ⁴ reports that he failed to find any
traces of Gordon's road leading southwards from the gap
in the Antonine Wall, and that the local inhabitants had
no knowledge of the existence of such a road. He adds,
however, that a Roman road is said to have run S. from
the fort of Castlecary, about 5 miles W. of Watling
Lodge, "by Crow-bank, and Fannyside, and that the
stones of it were lately dug up". He marks the beginning
of this supposed road, as far as the crossing of the Walton
Burn, on his Plate XXXV, and suggests, though purely as
a speculation, that the most likely route for it to follow
thereafter would be by way of Glentore, "Crooked-
dykes", Kirk of Shotts, Murdostoun and Hyndshaw to
Belstane, near Carluke.
(iv) Stuart (1844) ⁵ states that a branch road left the
road up the Clyde valley at Belstane and "appears to
have gone nearly due north by the Kirk of Shotts, either
to the station at Castlecary, or to that at Camelon". He
suggests that it may even have divided, a branch running
to each fort, and records a stretch as having been traced,
shortly before 1844, between Belstane and Castlehill
(843518) and also "supposed vestiges" as having been
dug up on the farm of Bracco, at a site identified in a
footnote as the outflow of the Lilly Loch (8266). The
road observed between Belstane and Castlehill must,
however, have been a portion of the Clydesdale road,
which runs through both these places, while Mr.
Davidson (see below) has produced convincing reasons
for discounting the supposed Roman remains at the
Lilly Loch.
(v) Since 1867 all the editions of the 1-inch O.S. map,
prior to the current (7th) series, have marked a Roman
road, as a site, leading S. from Castlecary to the modern
road at Walton farm, and thence SE. for a further three-
quarters of a mile to the Walton Burn. The relevant entry
in the O.S. Name Book makes it clear that, in plotting
this road, the surveyors were merely transferring the line
given on Roy's plate as best they could, "no person in
the neighbourhood being able", as they say, "to point
the road out on the ground". The road had rightly been
omitted from all the published 6-inch O.S. maps.
(vi) It is claimed that during the excavations at Castle-
cary in 1902 a road was traced for about 1000 ft. from
the S. gate of the fort, terminating at what appeared to
be an old stone-quarry. ⁶ At a distance of 200 ft. from
the fort this road is said to have thrown off a branch,
15 ft. wide; and on an accompanying sketch-map ⁷ the
branch is called "Military Way from the South", and is
shown as running almost due S. for about half a mile
to an unnamed tributary of the Red Burn, its further
course being cut off by the margin of the map. In the
absence of any photographs or measured drawings, it is
difficult to know how far this information can be relied
upon. On the one hand it is likely enough that a metalled
road issued from the S. gate of the fort, and the excavators
can hardly have invented the branch road, particularly
since they state that its width was only half that of the
"quarry" road. On the other hand it is highly doubtful
whether either road was traced to the extent claimed on
the sketch-map. The embankment of the Glasgow and
Stirling railway cuts across the line of the "quarry" road
only 500 ft. from the fort, and the so-called "quarry" lies
not more than 200 ft. beyond the embankment and is, in
fact, purely a natural hollow at the foot of a strip of rising
ground. Nor are any indications of the branch road
visible on the surface at the present time - the stone
revetment on either side of the streamlet that crosses
the line being comparatively modern, and not, as the
excavators believed, the remains of a Roman culvert.

1 Geogr Collections, i, 329.
2 Historical Inquiries, 39.
3 Itin. Septent., opp. p. 11.
4 Military Antiquities, 106-7.
5 Caledonia Romana (2nd ed. 1852), 259.
6 P.S.A.S., xxxvii (1902-3), 329.
7 Ibid., 272.

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