The North East Entrance with Twin Guard Chambers and Sharply Incurved Ramparts

© Kanovium Project

This is a view of the north east gate taken standing at the area of the rampart before guard chamber, the area with the trees is the entrance passage to the fort and behind this can be seen the curve of the now very spread rampart.  The area to the right of the rampart is the annex section of the fort.  It is this far area of rampart that the 4th or 5th century dolphin buckle was found.  The area centre was also the location of a three foot deep rubbish pit, this was emptied by Gardner who found a small but crucial piece of dating evidence, a small base fragment of an undecorated Samian bowl.  The verdict was that it dated to the time of Hadrian, A.D 120.  All it really proves is that however lived here at that time used Roman pottery, but not who they were, it certainly does not prove they were Romans.  Finds were very scarce indeed, you could almost feel sorry for Gardner, but the site at 30 acres is fairly massive, and the trenches only examined small sections, all he found was one other piece of Roman pot, yellow and corroded, Roman-British coarseware, one piece of animal bone, one pot boiler, a pot boiler is a stone, usually rounded which are heated in a fire and dropped in a pot of water.  This is still use today in the ‘sweat lodge’, a type of sauna, in the ancient case it was to boil water.  Several of these pot boilers were found at Caerhun, but were probably a common Iron age practice.  Also found was a corroded iron object, the correct date, or use could not be guessed, but Gardner thought it probably not ancient.  A flint tool, which may have been older than the fort, and finally last but not least, a stone sling shot.  While walking at Castell Cawr above Abergele a sling shot was unearthed by a rabbit hole and I reproduce it below.

© Kanovium Project

This sling shot was found fairly close to the crest of the huge west rampart at Castell Cawr, it would be nice to think it was dropped by a defender of the fort during an attack, though simply it could have just been discarded, it is shown at actual size, not only can it be seen to be shaped it has also been burnt, which of course means nothing.

Finally, the area beyond the gate in the above image in 1906 was the site of a house, Gardner described it and showed it on his plan of the north east gate.  He describes the work of doing the actual digging was given to a local man who ‘actually lived on the mountain’, there is another derelict house south of the ramparts below on Pen y Corddyn Bach, so which house the digger lived in is not mentioned but it must have been one or the other, what a place to live eitherway.  A bit eerie I would have thought, in the above case for definite, the fort has the brooding quality so typical of these ancient sites, as I mentioned the site being seldom visited adds to this affect.  Exactly the same can be noted at Kanovium, as if someone is watching you from the old ramparts.  Today nothing of this house can be viewed.