Castle Hill Fort

Like many places along the line of the Wall, it is speculated that the first Roman military presence at Castle Hill was established during the campaigns of governor Agricola sometime around 81AD, and the site later re-used during the Antonine period. In this case there is absolutely no evidence to validate this claim.

According to Roy the area available for occupation within the ramparts of the Castle Hill fort measure 320 ft. from east to west by 210 ft. north-south (c.98 x 64 m), an area of just over 1½ acres (c.0.6 ha). There is a single gateway located centrally in the south side. The rampart wall makes an abrupt change of alignment at the top of the hill, altering its course from almost due west to south-west, crossing the brook at the bottom of Castle Hill and then turning west once more to climb Hutcheson Hill to the fortlet at Cleddans. The fort has not yet been excavated and there are no known coins or significant finds reported other than the few surviving monumental inscriptions from the vicinity.

There are five inscribed stones recorded by R.I.B. from the neighbourhood of the Castle Hill fort: an ansate tablet found in 1698 built into a cottage at Castlehill (RIB2196); an altarstone found in 1826 during ploughing ‘a few hundred yards east of the fort’ (RIB 2195); a sandstone tablet found 1865 at the west end of Hutcheson Hill (RIB 2198); a distance slab ploughed up at the western end of Hutcheson Hill in 1969 (RIB 3507), and a panelled tablet found in fields 100 yards south-west of the fort in 1847, broken on the right by the plough and bearing an image of boar running left beneath the text (RIB 2197); all except RIB2198 are now housed in the Hunterian Museum. A copy of RIB2198 is in the museum (the original was taken to Chicago and destroyed in the fire of 1871).

Military Units at Castle Hill

The name of this auxiliary regiment occurs on a single altarstone dedicated by a man who styles himself a praefectus (vide supra). A prefect was placed in charge of either a fully-mounted cavalry ala or a part-mounted, mixed infantry cohort, whereas the commander of a standard auxiliary infantry cohort was usually a military tribune, sometimes an experienced legionary centurion. It is evident from this stone that the Fourth Cohort of Gauls was a part-mounted unit, a cohors equitata, presumably with a nominal strength of five-hundred men, a cohors quingenaria. This auxiliary unit was recruited from among the men belonging to the various tribes of the Gallic provinces, modern day France, the fourth regiment to have been so formed. They are one of only a few Auxiliary regiments attested on inscriptions from the Antonine Wall.