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The Roman Camp-Site near Castor on the Nene

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Christopher Hawkes
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Extract

In his Editorial Notes for September 1930, the Editor of ANTIQUITY described an exploratory flight over England and Scotland taken by him and Mr H. J. Andrews in June of that year, in the course of which a most remarkable discovery was made. A main objective of the flight was the Roman town of Durobrivae, where the Ermine Street from London to Lincoln and the North crosses the river Nene, now the boundary here between the counties of Huntingdon and Northampton. Extensive, and for their period careful excavations were carried out in this vicinity by E. T. Artis in the twenties of the 19th century, and illustrated in a sumptuous quarto volume of plates; but despite exhaustive summaries of these and all recordable discoveries contributed to the Victoria County History, by Haverfield for the Northamptonshire side in 1902, and by Miss M. V. Taylor for the Huntingdonshire side in 1926, no systematic modern work has been attempted on any part of the site, and an air reconnaissance seemed an ideal way of re-introducing it in 1930 to the attention of archaeologists.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 13 , Issue 50 , June 1939 , pp. 178 - 190
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1939

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References

1 ANTIQUITY, 1930, 4, 274–5.Google Scholar

2 For the degree of probability that this name in the Antonine Itinerary is indeed the correct one, see V.C.H. Northants, 1, 166–7;Google Scholar V.C.H. Hunts., 1, 262–3.Google Scholar

3 Artis, E.T., Durobrivae (1828).Google Scholar

4 V.C.H. Northants, 1, 166 ff.Google Scholar

5 V.C.H. Hunts., 1, 228 ff. This account includes the results of numerous observations by Mr Wyman Abbot, F.S.A.Google Scholar

6 Cf. the Roman milestone found by its north gate, giving 1 mile as its distance presumably from what was reckoned the centre of Durobrivae : CLL. VII, 1156 with Eph. Ep. IX, p. 634; V.C.H. Hunts., 1, 234–5.Google Scholar

* The dimness of the photograph is due entirely to the fact that the field was planted with an unsuitable crop. It seemed better, however, to publish it now, faint as the record is, than to wait for a crop of corn and a dry year—a combination that may be long in coming again. At the time of discovery I implored Cranwell to get it photographed, but without result.—O.G.S.C.

7 Wheeler, , Prehistoric and Roman Wales, 219–220, fig. 93.Google Scholar

8 See his plan of the site in Durobrivae, p1. XXIII, and for its position, p1. I ; it lies in the north of the eastern portion, in Artis’ day subdivided by field-boundaries now vanished, of the area called Conygree Close or Field : cf. V.C.H. Hunts., 1, 230.Google Scholar

9 Oswald, F., Margidunum (Nottingham Art Mus. reprint from Trans. Thoroton Soc. 1927), 1 (with p1. 1), 8, 34.Google Scholar

10 On the question of this identification see V.C.H. Hunts., 1, 262–3.Google Scholar

11 Phillips, C.W., ANTIQUITY, 193I, 5, 355–9;Google Scholar Arch. Journal., 91, III and p1. XXIII.Google Scholar

12 Though a certain number of bronze coins of Claudius have been recorded from the ‘Castles’ site, the main body of its coin–list begins with Vespasian (V.C.H. Hants., I, 236), and the known pottery and small finds there begin with the Flavian period (ibid. 248). In Antiq. Journ., XV, 113–118, Mr I. D. Margary describes, with air–photographs and plans, a series of seven Roman roads in the Castor area argued by him to be later in date than Ermine Street. King Street is not among them, its line being here as invisible from the air as on the ground, but he supposes, with Codrington (Roman Roads in Britain, 121) that it was later than Ermine Street also. ‘It seems clear’ he says (117) ‘that Ermine Street was the first’, but surely at most only of the series he describes ; while ‘King Street must have been the next to be made’ (118) is really a statement of opinion only, and Mr Margary’s contention that the Fen Road from Denver and Whittlesey through Peterborough was planned to effect a junction with King Street and not with Ermine Street (114–5,118) would appear to be probable rather than proved. Even if proved, it does not show King Street to be later made than Ermine Street. Mr Margary’s article is a most valuable account of the civilian road–system of the Castor area in Roman times, and it is unfortunate that the failure of our camp–site to show up in his air–photographs precluded him from considering the topography of the antecedent military phase. However, it should be noticed that another camp did show up, and is to be seen in his plate XIII about 1¼ miles northwest of our site; it is a rectangle with rounded corners, measuring some 330 by 220 feet (113), and though lying close beside Ermine Street, is aligned not with it but with the Roman road that runs off west to Wansford almost opposite its centre. It would be most interesting to learn the date of this camp, and its relation to those we are here considering.

13 Tacitus, , Annals, 12, 31;Google Scholar Collingwood, , J.R.S. 14, 252–6;Google Scholar Pryce, Davies, Antiq. Journ., 18, 29 ff.Google Scholar

14 Peterborough Museum. Eph. Epigr. 3, p. 142;Google Scholar V.C.H. Northants, 1, 214–5.Google Scholar

15 Antiq. Journ., 18, 46–7, fig. 3, 6.Google Scholar

16 ibid. 39 and map (FIG. I) 32.

17 Mr C. W. Phillips points out to me that the extreme liability to floods of this crossing of the Welland would militate strongly, after some years of experience, in favour of creating the Ermine Street route as a better alternative.

18 6–in. O.S. Northants, 11, SE ; Haverfield in V.C.H. Northants, 1, 204, 214–5, and 168 with map, fig. 4. Haverfield’s plea (215) for further work on the Hilly Wood site seems to have remained unanswered. He records that the tile is said to have been found ‘with an empty urn’, and it may have been deposited as the lid of a cremation–interment, perhaps one of a cemetery. In any case further investigation seems urgently desirable.

19 Richmond, , Arch. Journ., 89, 51.Google Scholar

20 Kendrick, and Hawkes, , Arch, in England Wales, 214–5;Google Scholar Crawford, and Keiller, , Wessex from the Air, 38–41;Google Scholar Antiq. Journ., 17, 278 and note 2; xvm, 30 and note 1.Google Scholar

21 Oswald, , op. cit.;Google Scholar Kendrick, and Hawkes, , op. cit., 215–6.Google Scholar

22 The internal area of Margidunum is given as about 6½ acres by Collingwood (Arch. Roman Britain, 28); Dr. Oswald, the excavator, gives it as 7–8 acres (op. cit., 8). The nature of the Margidunum garrison is uncertain, but one would expect auxiliaries ; at Hod Hill legionaries were certainly present at some time or other, as is shown by the remains of armour and arms from the site, including the legionary pilum, in the British Museum. The area of the Hod Hill camp is about 7 acres, not 3.4 as implied in Wessex from the Air, 38, by comparison with camp D at Cawthorn in Yorkshire, which contains actually rather over 3.5 acres (Richmond, Arch. Journ., LXXXIX, 70).

23 Tacitus, , Annals, 14, 32.Google Scholar

24 The missing Colchester end of this road was recovered by excavation in 1936: J.R.S., 27, 240.Google Scholar

25 I owe knowledge of this unpublished material to the kindness of Mr T. C. Lethbridge, F.S.A.

26 Proc. Prehist. Soc. E. Anglia, 1, 321–3;Google Scholar Proc. Suffolk Inst, of Arch., 26, 269.Google Scholar

27 Norfolk Norwich Arch. Soc, 26, 153–9.Google ScholarPubMed

28 ANTIQUITY 6, 342–8.Google Scholar

29 Norfolk Norwich Arch. Soc, 26, 161–2.Google Scholar