NT 908009. A Roman camp at North Yardhope, Harbottle, discovered in 1974 by G Waters, after noting signs on air photographs (a). It is about 5 acres in area (about 150 by 140 metres) facing east with three entrances (with titula), those on the north and south being slight east of centre; there is no entrance on the west side. It lies between the Roman road (RR 88) on the south and the Longtae Burn on the north. The whole thing is well-preserved, although disfigured by drainage ditches running north-south. (1)

Three sides of the camp are visible on air photographs which pre-date laying of drainage ditches. (2)

Rampart survives as mound about 30-40 cms high. A number of drainage trenches have dissected the camp. In one, traces of paving are visible adjacent to south gate. (3)

North Yardhope Roman camp, surveyed by RCHME. (4)

Scheduled. (5)

RCHME account. (6)

Site visited and found subject to bracken encroachment in 2005-06, as part of field assessments made within the Otterburn ATE. (7)

This camp has been re-assessed in connection with RCHME's survey and publication of Roman Camps in England. The following descriptive account is taken from the published text.
This camp lies in open heather moorland at about 275 m above OD and between two streams, the Longtae Burn to the N and an unnamed tributary to the S. Although it slopes gradually SE, the site provides the best expanse of comparatively level ground in the immediate vicinity. The views down the valley are extensive. The rather poor natural drainage of the boulder-clay subsoil has been improved by a system of modern land drains which have damaged the Roman defences. The camp has a roughly square ground plan, measuring about 137 m internally from NNE to SSW by about 144 m transversely and enclosing an area of 2.0 ha (4.9 acres). Only the N rampart has escaped disturbance from the land drains, although minor modern trackways have cut through the camp in the NW and NE corners. The N rampart also has the most complete surviving stretch of the associated ditch; this is 0.1 m deep, whilst the external face of the rampart still rises to a height of 0.6 m with an internal height of 0.1 m. On the W the ditch has been almost totally obliterated by a parallel land drain.
The camp faces E, down the valley, and has three gates, originally about 5 m wide and each defended by a traverse. On the S and E the mound of each traverse stands about 5 m forward of the line of the ditch. On the N, however, this distance is reduced to about 1 m, effectively making the gate no more than a postern, as a result of the proximity of the steep slope that falls 6.3 m to the Longtae Burn. This N traverse is the best preserved of the three: its mound still stands to a height of 0.6 m, although its ditch is now no more than a vegetation mark.
The identification of internal features has been hindered by the dense heather growth over most of the camp. However, just inside the S entrance a land drain has cut through the gate and exposed a concentration of small boulders and slabs. This stone spread does not occur to any equivalent degree in any of the other drains, and thus may represent a paved entrance designed to combat boggy conditions at this point and to maintain a dry throughfare. Just to the S of the camp lies the course of the Roman road linking High Rochester (Bremenium) on Dere Street with the Flavian fort at Low Learchild (?Alauna) on the Devil's Causeway (MacLauchlan 1864, 49 (4a); Richmond and Askew 1937, 47 (4b); Margary 1973, 482 (88) (4c)). This section of the road is now overgrown by a peat deposit roughly 0.4 m deep, although in several places modern trackways cut down to what appear to be fragments of the original road surface or its foundations. Full information is included in the NMR Archive. (8a)