| More information : The rectangular Roman temporary camp known as ‘Sills Burn South’, previously recorded on the west side of Sills Burn and to the immediate east of Dere Street, measuring 23m by 85m (enclosing 1.8ha) and visible as earthworks. The defences are best preserved on the west side where the bank survives to a height of 1m and the ditch is 0.6m deep. A single gate is identifiable in the north, west and south sides.
(NY 82549971 Sited from AP) Roman camp at Sills Burn South, encloses about 4 3/4 acres. The rampart is circa 5 yards wide, and the ditch, which is clearest at the NE angle is 4-5 yards wide. The top of the rampart is up to 3 1/2 ft above the ditch bottom (1).
Roman temporary camp. The north and south gates have internal claviculae. See plan (2).
Description of the Roman temporary camp by Authorities 1 and 2 correct. See sketch survey (3).
The camp is as described, but the S half now much mutilated by ploughing. Surveyed at 1:2500 (4).
No change since reports of 23.8.56 and 27.10.70 (5).
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. Only 170m downstream from Sills Burn North, the space between Dere Street and the steep slopes on the W bank of the Sills Burn is reduced to less than 170m. Despite this, the gently sloping ground here is occupied by another camp, its peculiar elongated design reflecting the constricted site. The camp measures approximately 230m by 85m and encloses an area of 1.8 ha (4.5 acres). It is cut diagonally by a small tributary into which a system of modern open drains flows. The position of these has been determined by the alignment of a block of ridge-and-furrow cultivation. Each drain is separated by four ridges (CUCAP BD 8 (6a); Richmond 1940,pl opp p121 (6b)).
The defences are best preserved close to the central point of the W side; here the rampart stands 1.0m high and the ditch is 0.6m deep. Ridge-and-furrow occupies the ground between the road and these defences, lying parallel to both. In the S part of this side, ploughing has ridden over the bank, leaving a swelling only 0.5m high; on the short S side the bank was also incorporated into the ploughed land and is reduced to a height of 0.2m internally, although it still stands 0.6m high externally. No ditch is visible here on the surface, and the S end of the E side is little more than a scarp above the tributary. To the N, on the E of the tributary and outside the area of ploughing, the state of preservation improves, the bank being 0.7m high and the ditch 0.2m deep. A small plot of five short arable ridges, aligned N to S and bounded by drains in the extreme NE angle of the camp, has levelled part of the bank here.
Excavation in 1993, close to the NW angle, revealed that the inner and outer faces of the bank had been revetted with turf that had been removed from the course of the bank itself. The ditch was 1m deep and had a shallow U-shaped profile (info, C. Waddington). A single gate is identifiable in the short N and S sides, each defended by an internal clavicula. The S clavicula has been overridden by the ploughing and is now no more than 0.2m high; at 0.4m, the N one is still much reduced in height, presumably on account of ploughing, but being outside the area of surviving ridge-and-furrow it is unclear how this has come about. Gaps in the defences at the points that divide the E and W sides in the ratio 1:2 probably indicate the former position of gates. Any claviculae, however, have been destroyed by the drains or are masked by their up-cast material. The indications are that the camp faced S, towards the fort at High Rochester (Bremenium). There is no evidence to support the suggestion (St Joseph 1935, 241 (6c)) that there had once been a central rampart dividing the camp into two halves. Full information is included in the NMR Archive (6).
NY 8253 9968. Roman camp, 750m SSW of Sills Farm. Scheduled RSM No 20948 (7).
Published account (8).
Scheduled (9).
Survey plan (10).
The rectangular Roman temporary camp known as ‘Sills Burn South’, previously recorded on the west side of Sills Burn and to the immediate east of Dere Street, was mapped as an earthwork from aerial photography and lidar imagery as part of a PhD project at the University of York, in collaboration with the Historic England aerial investigation and mapping team. The earthworks survive, though are overlain and eroded in places by later ridge and furrow ploughing (UID 1630601). The north, west and south defences are better preserved than the east, with the single gates on each side being protected by internal clavicula (11-12).
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