More information : [NY 2085 6188] Fortlet 1 [GS] (site of) (1)
(NY 2086 2189) Roman Mile-fortlet No 1 at Biglands House. APs clearly show the platform which is 49-50 yards square over the ditches. Visited by St Joseph 20.8.49 (2). Trial pits dug across the east rampart in 1954 showed no trace of turfwork; the 30ft wide rampart consisting of marsh silt, rather mixed, resting on the ridge of the raised beach, containing small pockets of shore gravel, reminiscent of the artificial platform of Milecastle 79 (NY 26 SW 17). No sign was found of the masonry which the St Josephs air photographs had seemed to indicate (3). Hadrianic pottery has been found on the site (4). The slopes surveyed are rather indefinite and very gradual. Those to the SW of the farm could possibly be natural slopes (5). (3-5)
Biglands milefortlet was trial-trenched in 1954 and 1974, and the area stripped in 1975. These show the fortlet to be subrectangular in plan measuring 40m by 50m. The original defence was a turf rampart 7m. wide surrounded by a 'V'shaped ditch, 4-4.5m. wide and 1.3m - 1.5m. deep. There was a 6m berm between the rampart and ditch. The gateway was of six post type with a lightly metal road leading from it. At the end of this phase the fortlet was deliberately demolished and the gateway burnt. The second phase consisted of rebuilding the turf rampart and revetting it with timber. The gateway was positioned in the same place but when the fort was abandoned it was filled in with turves. The road was recambered and surfaced. The third phase consisted of rebuilding and revetting the rampart which increased in size from 6-6.5m. wide to 9-9.5m wide. The gateway was abandoned and a 1.5m wide passageway was constructed through the rampart. The road was remetalled and consolidated in red clay. The forts internal feature consisted of cooking hearths with a turf enclosure abutting the northern rampart and a possible barrack block. Dating evidence is scanty, but phase I may have been circa 125 to circa 140, phase 2 circa 155-9, and phase 3 from circa 163 to the late 2nd century. (6)
Excavations in 1975 showed that the fortlet was occupied throughout most of the 2nd. century, with probable intermissions during the periods when the Antonine Wall was held. The garrison was perhaps not more than 8 to 10 men. (7)
The milefortlet is situated at NY 2085 6189 on the top of a slight ridge running east to west. All that remains to be seen is a ploughed-down scarp, 0.3 - 0.4 m high, defining the inner edge of the surrounding ditch on the north, and to a lesser extent, the west side; disturbed and uneven ground occurs in the area of the excavation. A bungalow was built on the east side of the work c. 1975. Surveyed at 1:2500 as a part of the RCHME Cumberland Coast Project. (8)
Scheduled (9)
The milefortlet was seen as earthworks and cropmarks on air photographs and mapped from the photograph referenced by a previous Authority (CUCAP DI 16) taken by St Joseph in 1949. (10)
Air photograph of fortlet and running ditches. (11)
Located on the English Heritage map of Hadrian's Wall 2010. (12) |