The South Rampart of Kanovium Roman Fort

© Kanovium Project/Ken Evans

The South Rampart

The author stands at the south gate, the south rampart can clearly be seen, this is the first view of the fort wall gained from entering the site using the church lane.  The rampart is very well preserved here, the spur slopes toward the river and the bank can be seen to follow the contours sinuously, especially if viewed from the south vicus/annex area.  The flooded area is remains of the fort ditch, why does it appear as a pond and not continue around the corner of the fort? the area this photograph was taken from was the site of a post medieval dwelling, the ditch obviously being filled in as the walls of this ‘long house’ actually bonded with the fort rampart corner.  Bailie-Reynolds had a suspicion this structure was Roman so included it in his excavations (he certainly got around) but alas, it was found to be a 16th or 17th century house, comple with a yard and a garden with a fruit tree, justifing wasted effort be adds ‘at least it tells people where not to dig in future’ he also found pottery dating to this time which I have found is a fairly common find around Kanovium, much slipware, beer pots from Burslem, Stoke on Trent and Buckley ware, being picked up along with the Roman, see image below.

© Kanovium Project

To me finding later evidence of occupation of the site the Roman fort is very interesting, it would be good to not only know more about the Roman history, but new excavation would also tell us much about the medieval and later periods, the above pieces have been found around the area of the long house and north vicus, they all date 1500-1750, the lightest piece looks like being from a ‘Bellarmine’ wine flask, while top second to left is the beer pot from Burslem and identified after watching Time Team, Channel 4 TV, second to right is a slipware charger with barbotine style yellow decoration, far right identified from the Millers Collectables Guide as again a charger, complete with pecked edge, it would date to 1650 and feature a comical line of chickens or ducks.

The area to the right of the figure was the site of the fort annex, 0.23ha or 0.57 acres in size defended by a low wall and narrow ditch neither appeared finished.  The annex rampart was was 1.5 wide and the ditch was 2.7m wide and 1.1m deep.  As well as stripping all the turf off the rampart and excavating the long house Baillie-Reynolds also excavated most of the annex, bounded by the south causeway it was found to contain nothing but a very large Celtic style roundhouse which was associated with much metal working.  If this celtic house is consitent with Roman occupation is unknown, but along with the stone head found in the principia yard is an interesting insight into the amount of Celtic influence present at these auxiliary forts.

The North Western Corner of Kanovium Roman Fort

© Kanovium Project

An unusual view of the fort platform, seen from the small golf course attached to Caerhun Hall, not a view likely to be often seen by visitors to the site, it illustrates the remaining height of the fort rampart at this corner.  This area has been subject to more ploughing than the opposite side, but even so the platform still stands about a metre and a half above the meadow.  The remains here stand in some isolation, the field to the left was ploughed in 2001, which must be a frequent event, protective legislation will probably mean ploughing will not be of a deep nature, but even so no humps and bumps are visible, pottery fragments were fairly evident so the area is likely to have been part of the vicus, or civil settlement.  The picture is taken from the mini golf course, which affords a rather comical air to the Roman remains, trial trenches in this field during 1929 by P.K Baillie Reynolds failed to locate the western Roman road which should have emerged from the gateway on this area of the rampart which is just out of shot, right, he did find evidence of Roman occupation in all the trenches he dug.  My image for the Homepage of this website was taken from the high tree covered ridge in the background of this image.  The area  of the modern fences was once the site of a pathway to the church, and prior to the building of the lane all Caerhun’s burials came to the church down this path.  During the late 18th century Samuel Lysons on his map of the fort site indicated the area of the fort corner was covered by a small plantation of trees, infested with rabbits, possibly due to a connection with the church ( a common medieval occurrence) the remains had been damaged by years of sporting activity using ferrets and terriers.  Today there is really no indication to the size the fort ditch was, at nearly 7 metres wide it will have occupied a great deal of the foreground of this image.  A modern water pipe runs along this fence line also, presumably in the fort ditch, laid sometime in the 20th century, no information remains of any discoveries, but it hampered the Geophysics recently done by Gwynedd Archaeological trust as it was of a wide diameter and iron.

The Centre of the Roman Fort Looking North

© Kanovium Project

This is by far the most familiar view of the area of the fort, many people walk through here, some no doubt unaware or interested that the place is a very important archaeological site.  The same must be said for the bird watchers, the marsh to the north of the rampart is a noted bird watching vantage point and is found in many books about the pastime in Britain, the wall is on the Roman fort line and it is the embanking work of the Roman army that still provides us with the impressive view of the River Conwy.

In the days of the fort the photographer would have been standing roughly in the centre, at the junction of the main roads the Via Praetoria and the Via Principalis, the Principia would have just been visible to the left, and beyond that, to the left of the figure, the Horrea.  The Via Principalis was just to the left of the modern track, though the point it left the fort was at the area of the modern gate.  A long narrow building ran towards the car on the right side of the lane, probably a workshop, Baillie Reynolds had to obtain permission from Conway District Rural Council to completely remove the road surface.  The building, which is X on the plan was slightly shorter and narrower than the implied VII, had no thickening so therefore it was not a barrack block, it was however quite well preserved.  It was found a metre north of the lychgate which would roughly correspond to the area of the car, though it would have ran up to the area this image was taken from, it stood three full courses above the foundations.  A silted up drain was found to have ran beneath the centre of the modern lane (not really modern, many centuries old).  The area of the car was found to be occupied by the north Intervallum road, which was of two levels.  Also in this area was the north gate of the fort, now invisible, it remained in 1800 but had vanished by 1926, some evidence of the west gate tower was uncovered, all Roman levels had been removed in 1799, though a plan of the tower which had been 8 foot 6 inches by 10 feet wide was obtained.  The east tower went unexcavated because it was the site of a yew hedge, enough could be found to decide it was roughly the same size as the west tower, and neither had been built to a regular plan.  The twin towers had been recessed 2 feet 3 inches into the rampart, and the roadways emerging (no spina was found) took up a total space of  23 feet  6 inches wide.  The modern tarmac was also removed in the excavation of this gate.