Inchtuthil Temporary Camp I

Marching or Temporary Camp

Camp I lies at the far west end of the plateau, immediately east of a promontory fort that has been proposed as post-Roman in date (Pitts and St Joseph 1985: 248). It has received little attention in comparison with the other two camps to the east, and it receives fairly brief mention in the Inchtuthil volume (Pitts and St Joseph 1985: 243, figs. 1 and 2). It measures about 119m from north to south by 75m transversely, enclosing 0.9ha (2.2 acres). No entrances are visible although only part of the east side has been recorded from the air (and recent geophysical survey failed to locate this east side, Hoffmann and Woolliscroft pers comm). Enough survives of the north and south ends to indicate that these had no central entrance gap.

Excavations on the ditch of the camp have been recorded in two sources but with differing dimensions: in a summary article, St Joseph noted that the ditch was ‘barely 4 ft wide by 2 ft deep’ (1965, 83), but in the Inchtuthil monograph he records that the ditch was ‘only 5 ft wide and 2 ft. 10 in. deep’ (Pitts and St Joseph 1985: 225). It is unclear how many trenches were placed, with just a single section of the west side drawn (Pitts and St Joseph 1985: fig 70). Thus it appears that the camp ditch measured 1.2– 1.5m in width and 0.6–0.86m in depth.

References for Inchtuthil

  • Air Reconnaissance of North Britain by J.K. St. Joseph in J.R.S. xli (1951) pp.63/4;
  • Roman Britain in 1952 in J.R.S. xliii (1953) p.104;
  • Roman Britain in 1953 in J.R.S. xliv (1954) pp.84;
  • Roman Britain in 1954 in J.R.S. xlv (1955) pp.122/3;
  • Roman Britain in 1955 in J.R.S. xlvi (1956) p.122;
  • Roman Britain in 1956 in J.R.S. xlvii (1957) p.98;
  • Air Reconnaissance in Britain, 1955-7 by J.K. St. Joseph in J.R.S. xlviii (1958) p.???;
  • Roman Britain in 1957 in J.R.S. xlviii (1958) p.132; Roman Brit
Sites near Inchtuthil Temporary Camp I