The Visible Remains of Kanovium Roman Settlement

© Kanovium Project/Ken Evans

The remains of Roman activity at Caerhun are fairly extensive, over many acres and not just the area of the rampart, which is what the average visitor to the site would think.  You will most likely enter the enclosure of Kanovium by car, the church lane enters the fort at the south western corner, and your car will rise as the track ascends the fort corner, looking left and right the rampart will be very noticeable, especially to the right, with good sections of silted up ditch.  Park your car outside the lychgate and go into the field next to the public footpath sign.  The rampart is evident as the church wall sits on top of it, follow it down to the rounded corner which is  the north eastern angle, the wall follows the Roman fort wall very closely and after you have negotiated a number of gates you will arrive at the area of the east gate, evident under the soil as the odd bit of stonework peeps out of the grass, and the backfill from the 1920’s excavation can clearly be seen.  Walk around to the next corner and appreciate the size of the fort wall here, see above image, try to clamber up this rampart and imagine a palisade adding to the height, the man stands six feet tall and therefore the rampart must stand ten feet or higher, surely it cannot be much reduced from the original height, Roman fort walls are never very high, ten-fifteen feet maximum, this is perhaps the best preserved part of Kanovium, indeed the whole rampart is very well preserved here, follow it up the field until it meets the church lane, the south gate is visible as a prominent break in the rampart with odd bits of the stone tower visible beneath the grass.  Notice on the above image some stone wall core is visible, please click this link, this is due to rain damage during the bad weather of autumn 2000, also visible around the angle are several deep cuts into the fort wall, these could even be mistaken to be fort gates but in fact are P.K. Baillie Reynolds’ trial cuts massively disfiguring the well preserved remains, nice if he could have put it all back tidy.  Next enter the field to the left of the lane, the rampart here is not very well preserved, ploughing seems to have taken its toll, but still prominent the fort can here be seen as a platform which stands above the top of the slight spur that the fort stands on.  As with the south rampart are the ditch is fairly prominent and can still hold water during bad weather, also many building shapes can be seen, for a different angle of viewing attempt to see the fort from the area of Caerhun Hall.  Next enter the churchyard, to the right of the church door stands a pilae from the bath house.

This is a pilae from the nearby bath house, one of many, the last example to be seen.  It supported the floor in the underfloor heating system the hypocaust, now this one holds a sundial.  Roman tool marks can be seen all over the pillar.  Next take a look at the medieval carvings in the church wall, a depiction of Christ above the main door, and a very weather worn one on the south wall of the church. which is hard to decifer.

Walk down to the path at the back of the church, a view can be seen here of the Conwy river, as we seem to be on fairly the same level as in Roman times we here must get exactly the same view the soldiers had from the parapet of the fort wall.  The view over the marsh to the river is fairly spectacular, bird watchers may also be in evidence as the place has some renown in this department.  Directly beneath the fort wall the cutting the baths sit in can be seen, and beyond that a dike, leave the church area and take a walk down to the remains of the baths.

The bath-house is in a dreadful condition, it can be seen as extensive footings, much building debris such as box flue tiles are all unearthed by the colony of moles that seems to live at such an unlikely spot.  But the many rooms that made up his bath house can clearly be seen, while a tiny bit of wall still standing about four feet high can be seen, complete with very hard white mortar.  Notice the dike, I am uncertain if this is Roman, but it contains Roman material, leave the area of the baths and follow the dike down river until you reach the remains of a stone Victorian boat house

The possible Roman dock can be seen, a broad ‘U’ shaped double quay affair, now silted up, but still capable of recieving ships several hundred years ago when Caerhun Hall was built, the right quay wall is in very good condition it is possible to walk out into the river to the tip, remains of buildings can be seen on this quay wall, also beyond the left quay more footings can be viewed.  Take a good look at this dock, it is a key feature of the fort, allowing easy movement of men and supplies making the fort a bridgehead into the hostile territory of the local Celtic tribes, but it is also a rare feature.  Now walk up the field from the dock until the public footpath is reached, this is the north vicus area, humps and bumps are in evidence and strip type buildings flanked the Roman road here all the way to the small stream, go through the gate and immediately in front of you is one of the fort cemeteries.

We only located this cemetery recently, it can be seen on the small strip of land to the between the modern track and the river edge, in a good light you will see the whole area is covered with slight undulations, .look at them closer and you will see they are in fact low mounds, maybe 5 feet square by about 10 inches high, these are actual Roman burial mounds.  One in particular is very clear, all four of the sides can be easily seen while the corners seem to be marked by stones, others are not so distinct but are still recognizable once you know what to look for.  The Kanovium Excavation Report mentions one tomb at this spot, but they have failed to spot the other nine.  The tombs line the road, which does not  follow the modern track, from these tombs it is running between the modern track and the field boundary on the slope.  Presumably this whole area right up to the modern holiday cottage was used a the cemetery, it clearly shows the extent of the north vicus which must have ended at the small stream and gate, other tombs must have been sited on the left of the modern track too but there appears evidence off rigg and furrow ploughing, which is visible on the image below, ploughing to the right of the track, tombs (just about visible) to the left.

Finally take a look at some most complicated linear features, which represent the Roman road(s) possibly an aqueduct and to confuse matters even further soil slip.  Leave the tombs, right and continue along the track, climb the short rise past a stile, and in front of you the road can be seen terracing the hill, see it ran following the field boundary from the stream, but there seems to be another road in parallel with it, this could simply represent an up hill road and a down hill road to ease the gradient for the carts used by the military, this was common Roman practice, and indeed still current today, as the summit of Shap Fell on the M6 motorway still uses this principle.  So climb to the centre of the field and take a look around, further up the field is another linear feature, this could be an aqueduct to the bath house as it seemed very similar to one seen at Dorchester.  Walk to the stile at the edge of the wood, Coed y Arw and look back towards the two bottom linear features, one is absolutely the road as kerb stones and a ditch can be viewed for the length of the field.  To the non expert it is difficult to say what the three earthworks are, soil slip could be a possibility, geophysics would prove it once and for all.  The stile at Coed y Arw is 1000 metres from the north gate of the fort, if Roman features extend further north cannot yet be answered as the ground seems very disturbed within the wood, the footpath does not generally seem on line of the Roman road.  Baillie Reynolds excavated the road jst as it drops down to the river at the north vicus, it was found to be the usual gravel structure, which he hinted at it being Roman but would not say for definite, but said the usual ‘who else would have constructed a gravel road here’  During August of 2002 the field containing the linear features was ploughed.  No doubt this field has been ploughed before, but it graphically represents the continuing damage being done to the earthwork remains here.  Something that I first viewed ten years ago may no longer be visible, this is sad.  First the field was ploughed, followed by bieng rolled several days later, before rolling the cobble surface of a Roman road, very damaged, was evident, but after rolling the field looked like a snooker table and absolutely no linear features could be seen.  Field walking during this period did not reveal much of interest, though I know it had been searched previously to me, several pieces of Roman pottery being the only evidence of their presence, there was however many pieces of pottery some dating back to Tudor times, though most was the common Buckley ware, a solitary Mesolithic arrowhead bieng an enigmatic pointer to much earlier use of this land.  Please see image bottom of this page to see the ploughed field.

Finally go back to the fort and view the south vicus, from the area of the bath-house it can be seen to have been artificially leveled by the Romans and the causeway can be seen exiting the south gate, in the middle of the field is a large tree, it turns right here to head towards the modern road, and this was the area of the other tomb listed in Kanovium which must confirm the road course.  This whole field shows the characteristic humps and bumps, air reconnaissance showed the vicus extended as least as far as the north’s, to the wood boundaried by the stone wall. This is the extent of the visible remains but from this wood to Coed y Arw must be 2000 metres, add to this the area of docks and bath house, there was probably a west vicus too, which might have featured the fort parade ground, and possible construction camps and cart parks, this now sadly is beneath Caerhun Hall, P.K. Baillie Reynolds adds that digging anywhere between the fort and the Hall produced evidence of Roman occupation.  Curiously no road was found to emerge from the west gate, a trial trench just outside the gate produced no evidence, while also a trench which extended for the entire lenght of this field found no road.  This trench, and the first one however did find occupation debris, therefore the Roman settlement here must have sprawled over much of the area, (add land for agriculture which would have been necessary too)  it might be fair to say that the settlement extended for over 1000 square metres not including farmland.

Field next to Coed yr Arw, ploughed August 2002, Roman road was here.
 
 
Image above © Kanovium Project, others  © Kanovium Project/Ken Evans