More information : Air photographs show a double-ditched patrol-track running behind palisades (NY 15 SW 9) to Silloth School playing field, where it turns SSE towards a square enclosure. A section across the ditch of this enclosure revealed a typically military sump-profile, the enclosed area was traversed by a broad ditch, apparently part of the field-system associated with a nearby native farmstead (NY 15 SW 10). It is suggested that this square enclosure may be a Roman camp (see illustration card). (1-2)
The site has no distinctive entrances but the coastal road on the air photograph would appear to lead to one. Possibly a fortlet? Site not accepted as a temporary camp by Farrar. (3)
This site has been re-classified as an Iron Age/Romano-British farm with later Roman occupation, evidenced by excavated pottery from the third and fourth centuries. Its suggested status as a Roman camp is rejected by RCHME Roman Camps in England Project. (4)
Scheduled as a Roman Camp by English Heritage. (5)
A rectilinear enclosure of possible Iron Age or Roman date was seen as a cropmark and mapped from air photographs. This rectilinear enclosure, centred at NY 1144 5405, is possibly part of a field system. Three sides of the enclosure are visible: the west, the south and an incomplete section of the east side. The enclosure measures 155 m E-W and approximately 134 m N-S. The south-west corner of the enclosure is angled but other corners are not visible. An internal ditched boundary lies within 30 m parallel to the west side; this ditched boundary is visible for 34 m. Eight pits, also seen as cropmarks, of uncertain date and purpose, are aligned alongside this internal boundary. A boundary ditch which crosses the west of this rectilinear enclosure at NY 1134 5405 may be related to the settlement and field system NY 15 SW 10.
An enclosure at a similar approximate location has formerly been interpreted as a Roman camp, but this suggestion has twice been dismissed. (6) |