| More information : Bremenivm is a multi-phase site, originating in the Agricolan period as an outpost fort on Dere Street. It was rebuilt in both the early 2nd century and in the Severan period, and was destroyed in circa 350 AD. The walls remain on the south, west, and north sides to seven courses in places, and the east gate to impost level. Exterior earthwork defences exist on the south and north sides. The interior was partly excavated in about 1832. Two bastles and other buildings exist within the fort. [NY 832986] Bremenium Roman Fort [R] (1).
Bremenium Roman fort measuring circa 482ft by 445ft across the defensive walls excavated in 1852, 1855 and 1935.
Flavian-Trajanic period. The original Agricolan Fort (AD 78-85)
consisted of a single ditch and rampart, later demolished and
replaced by a larger rampart and elaborate ditch system.
Antonine period (AD 139-Late 2nd century). Fort rebuilt with rubble wall, backed by a clay rampart. In 1935, a 19ft road behind the wall
and an L-shaped barrack block were discovered.
Severan period (Early 3rd-Late 3rd century). Original defences
levelled and a new fort wall built. Most of the excavated internal
buildings belong to this phase. See Constantinian period
(circa 306 AD-Mid 4th century). Fort rebuilt with strong stone wall,
four gateways and angle and interval turrets. The internal layout
generally repeated the plan of earlier buildings. Fort destroyed in
mid-4th century and never restored. Six ditches of unknown period were found in 1935 on the N side of the fort. On the E and S sides were three larger ditches unrelated to those on the north (2).
Various inscribed stones have been found within or near the Roman fort at High Rochester. Details given. The stones are held by various museums throughout the country (3).
The fort has been badly mutilated but the main rampart can still be seen throughout. Stretches of Roman walling are visible in the W side, and gateways still exist on the N and W sides. Remains of an interval turret to the W of the south gate and possible remains of an angle turret within the SE angle of the fort are also visible (4).
Published survey (25") revised (5).
Name 'BREMENIVM' accepted for 4th. edition R.B.Map.
No change since reports of 13.9.56 and 6.11.70 (6).
High Rochester Roman Fort (formerly listed as Remains of Walling at High Rochester or Bremenium). Grade II. Roman fort, founded in the first century AD with restorations and rebuildings throughout the C2, C3 and C4. Ashlar. The mound of the fort is intact with lower parts of walls visible in many places. The west gateway stands to c.5ft with massive masonry of the flanking towers flush with adjoining wall; north impost stands in situ with moulded impost block and the springer of the arch. South internal tower between south gate and south-west angle of the fort also has extensive visible remains. The front of the tower has gone but the sides and back remain up to the height of a blocked doorway at 1st floor level. Jambs of north and south gates also visible (7).
The Roman fort of Bremenivm, located at High Rochester, is visible as extant earthworks, with extant / ruined stone structures in places, on lidar imagery and aerial photography and remains such on the latest 2016 imagery. Many of the major external defences and the fort platform survive, whilst the interior has largely been levelled and contains two later bastle houses and farm buildings. The fort was a multi-phased outpost on the line of Dere Street from the Agricolan period through to c.350 AD. The site was mapped as part of a PhD project at the University of York, in collaboration with the Historic England aerial investigation and mapping team.
The fort and its associated earthwork defences are situated on a west-facing slope overlooking the Sills Burn, with clear views southward over the Rede valley. The fort itself measures 147 x 136m internally (from the main rampart), though its outer defences and features associated with its potential extramural settlement cover a far greater area.
Visible from the air, the larger ramparts survive as earthworks on all four sides of the fort, though the original perimeter wall atop the rampart is visible as an earthwork bank only in the south-western and south-eastern quadrants and for a small section immediately east of the north gate’s site. The rampart is also topped in places by a stone wall, though whether the structure is of Roman origin or is purely later medieval / post medieval enclosure walling is unclear from the air. The south-eastern corner tower of the fort is visible as an earthwork, with a potential adjacent building constructed into the inner face of the south perimeter wall, while the interval tower to the west of the south gate survives as a stone structure. The outer facing of the west gate also survives as a stone structure standing to some height.
The fort perimeter is breached in the south and east by the modern paved lane, in places lying within a hollow way of earlier origin, obscuring the sites of the original gates on these sides. Further medieval / post medieval trackways, still in use, cut through the site of the north gate and c.15m south of the west gate, presumably related to access during the fort’s later conversion to a bastle and farm. As mentioned above, much of the fort’s interior appears to have been levelled, with small-scale ridge and furrow ploughing (UID 1630601) in the north-western quadrant of the fort interior and the aforementioned medieval / post medieval bastles, farm buildings and associated enclosures in the north-east and south-west. However, traces of the Roman period interior buildings of the fort are visible on historic and modern aerial photography and lidar imagery, particularly in the central and south-eastern parts of the interior. These internal buildings (in places matching excavation plans and in others not) are predominantly visible as parchmarks or cropmarks of stone building walls and surfaces (including the main north-south axial road and the headquarters building), but in the south-east are visible as earthwork ditches marking robber trenches following the building wall lines. The buildings seen from the air do not all directly relate to one another as a cohesive plan and are likely showing multiple phases of the fort’s history, including several rectangular and square structures on the fort’s NNW-SSE principal alignment.
The outer defences of the fort are visible on all sides, though are best preserved as earthworks on the southern and north-eastern perimeters. In the north-east, beyond the main rampart are up to six ditches in places, the most substantial being the innermost two, and at least four outer rampart banks. Numerous later trackways utilise the ditches and cut through the earlier features, accessing the bottom of the steep-sided Coal Cleugh burn to the north and potentially linking with the hollow ways (UID 1630630) on the far side. The easternmost earthwork in this complex is a very broad, ditched earthwork which may be the outermost defence but also aligns with the projected course of the Roman road of Dere Street (UID 1005251) and may thus be a later, on-going medieval usage of the major routeway. Beyond the line of the outermost rampart in the south-east quadrant of the fort, a long, gentle slope runs parallel to the line of the defences but some way out from the perimeter – this may be a natural feature which has been augmented to provide a further defence or alternatively an earlier phase of the fort’s perimeter.
The fort is recorded in the Northumberland Historic Environment Record (no. 8091), detailing the evidence of a multi-phase 1st-4th century fort presented by Authorities 1-7. Various excavations have been carried out in the 19th and 20th centuries, while geophysical surveys have been undertaken on the fort’s environs to the west/north-west and south-east from the 1990s (HER no. 8149) to identify features such as Dere Street Roman road and an aqueduct-water supply, as well as the extramural settlement and defended annexes to the west. Unusual areas of rectilinear enclosures to the south-east (UID 1630672) and south-west (UID 1630671) of the fort, surviving as earthworks, may be related to the site in some way, though they are not clearly evident as settlement remains and may represent extraction. The aqueduct, identified in the Scheduling, apparently enters the fort through a stone-covered channel through the south gate. The site is Scheduled (List Entry No. 1006610), with Rose Cottage and The Bastle (the two surviving internal post medieval bastles) being Listed Buildings (HER nos. 8090, 14944) of substantial construction, evidencing the use of the fort as a focus of settlement into the medieval and post medieval periods (8-11).
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