Aerial view of Roman camps by the Haltwhistle Burn with the fortlet at the bottom of the image. Photo © Tim Gates.

[NY 71446615] ROMAN FORT [G.S.] Excavated AD 1908 [T.I.] (1)

A Roman fortlet situated at Haltwhistle Burn on the line of the Stanegate, representing an addition to the Stanegate series of forts. Its overall measurements are about 210ft x 170ft with stone-faced ramparts and internal stone buildings. The east and south walls have single portal gateways with a postern on the west, the whole facing eastward and lying within a larger enclosing ditch. Excavations in 1907-8 showed that it was first occupied in the early years of Hadrian, but was carefully demolished about the time that Greatchesters [NY 76 NW 11] was constructed. (2)

Correctly described and generally well preserved, though little of the internal detail is now discernible. Resurveyed at 1/2500. (3)

Good aerial photographs of site. (4)(5)(6)

Additional bibliography. (7)

NY 715662 Haltwhistle Burn. Cord rig beneath Roman context. (8)

Visible on thermal imagery. (9)

Scheduled. (10)

The fortlet measures about 65m east-west by 50m north-south. A large enclosing ditch surrounds the fort on all except the west side at a distance which varies between 8m and 20m. (11)

Geophysical survey in 2017 detected anomalies which may relate to stone, nails and other materials which were redistributed in the backfill of excavations in 1907-8. The geophysical surveys concentrated on the interior of the fortlet but were effective in detecting the remains of a stone wall around it. Gates were detected in the east and south rampart and other anomalies almost certainly correspond to excavated structures (1907-8). (12)

This camp has been re-assessed in connection with RCHME's survey and publication of Roman Camps in Britain. The following descriptive account is taken from both the published and unpublished survey notes.
The Stanegate, the Roman road from Corbridge (Corio) to Carlisle (Luguvalium), had to negotiate the steep and narrow valley of the Haltwhistle Burn just to the S of Cawfields; from about AD 105 this crossing-point was guarded by a fortlet (Gibson and Simpson 1909 (13b); Breeze and Dobson 1985, 8 (13c)). Some of the internal features, excavated in 1908, including a barrack block and officers' quarters, are still visible as earthworks. Externally, the defences were strengthened by the provision of an outwork (cf Wilson 1984 (13d)). The Roman road almost clips the SE corner of this outwork and turns W at each of the crests above the burn, which was crossed at a slight angle. To the N lay Burnhead Crag, along the crest of which Hadrian's Wall was built; the Crag was removed by quarrying in the 20th century. The Vallum here lay close to the Wall, at the foot of the dip slope on the S side of the Crag. Between the Vallum and the fortlet (NY 76 NW 15) three camps were constructed, one of which was later halved in size. The chronological relationship of the camps to the other features of Roman date in the immediate vicinity is unknown. The area around the fortlet has been disturbed by watercourse and by the tracks and tramways associated with the 19th-century ironstone mines 400 m to the E. The scarps on the E bank of the burn have also been extensively quarried away. The ditches are well-preserved and survive in excellent condition, their V-shape accentuated by the cutting of shallow modern drainage ditches. The NE angle has however become silted, the S sector is 2.1 m deep internally with an irregular outer glacis, 0.7 m maximum height. The N ditch, a re-use of an existing natural gully, deepens towards its W end, the internal glacis, irregular in plan, is 0.9 m high. Corresponding with the gates in the N and E are two entrance causeways each with vague traces of a metalled track crossing them. In the northern example it must have extended to join with Stanegate but is interrupted by a later hollow-way. At the SW corner the ditch turns in a NW direction and terminates at the edge of a disused quarry which encroaches up to the W wall of the fortlet. This is clearly the quarry in which Clayton in 1844 had noted a Roman inscription LEG.VI-V on a rock face; the quarry had been re-opened in 1844 and closed shortly afterwards. The inscription was destroyed soon after its discovery. Clayton surmised that the quarry was used in the construction of Hadrians' Wall. (see auth 13b). Full information is included in the NMR Archive. (13a)

The fortlet was recorded at a scale of 1:10000 from aerial photographs as part of Hadrian's Wall World Heritage Site Mapping Project. (13e)

Located on the English Heritage map of Hadrian's Wall 2010. (13f)

General association with HER 6469 (Haltwhistle Burn 2), HER 6470 (Haltwhistle Burn 1), HER 6501 (Haltwhistle Burn 4), HER 12391 (Stanegate), HER 32579 (Haltwhistle Burn 3), HER 6524 (cord rig). (13)