Building the Antonine Wall

The rampart is the core structure of the monument constructed with its stone base and turf slabs. The width of the rampart was around 4-5m and it reached heights of at least 3m. Unsurprisingly, this superstructure of earth has not survived very well and, for most of the length of the Wall, the rampart is no longer visible.

The best place to see the remains of the rampart is just west of Rough Castle. The best place to see the remains of the stone foundation is New Kilpatrick cemetery.

The berm is the space between the rampart and ditch. Its width was not consistent throughout, but generally ranged from about 6m to 9m. This variability may be the result of miscalculations caused by different teams working on the ditch and rampart, the construction of both features at different times (the ditch being dug before the rampart was constructed, or vice versa), or may have been based on specific decisions to adapt to local landscape features. Recently, a series of pitted obstacles known as cippi have been located at several locations upon the berm.

The ditch is a monumental earthwork of varied width, dug to the north of the rampart and berm. The ditch was V-shaped with steep banks cut at angle of about 30 degrees.

There are some locations where the ditch appears to have never been dug. This may have been due to the difficulty of digging through hard rock, or the fact that the Wall’s location along craggy outcrops did not require this additional defence. However, there are also areas (for example, between Croy Hill and Bar Hill) where the ditch was dug despite naturally steep slopes and crags that would have made it unnecessary.

There are lots of places where you can still see the ditch today; some of the most impressive are Watling Lodge, Rough Castle, Seabegs Wood, Croy Hill and Callendar Park.

The outer mound lies immediately to the north of the ditch and was frequently constructed from the materials removed during the digging of the ditch. In some places the outer mound has been so prominent that it appears to have been mistaken by the 18th-century antiquarian Alexander Gordon for the rampart itself.

The military way was the Roman road that stretched the length of the Wall to its south. It linked the forts and allowed troops and supplies to move along its length easily. This road linked up with the network of other Roman roads leading north and south across northern Britain.

For several of the Wall forts, this Military Way may also have served as via principalis - the main road through the fort’s interior, crossing the fort from east to west gates. In other cases, it featured a series of bypass loops that allowed travel without the need to enter individual forts along the route.

Some vital materials were imported from the continent, along with much-missed luxury items: figs, coriander, olive oil and wine. The remains of grain found at Bearsden was probably imported and then processed locally. These items would probably have been shipped to ports such as Cramond on the Forth and then transported to the forts using the military way.

The best place to see the remains of the military way today is Seabegs Wood.

Seventeen forts were eventually built at regular intervals along the Wall, a dramatic increase from the original plan of just six. In comparison to other forts throughout Britain and the empire, the Antonine Wall forts are, on average, smaller than the norm. All followed the basic Roman design; the classic ‘playing-card’ shape of a rectangle with rounded corners.

The forts themselves were, like the rampart, primarily constructed of turf, with stone or timber internal buildings, and all but one, Bar Hill, were physically attached to the rampart. Within a courtyard surrounded by a protective stone or turf wall, the fort was laid out to a T-shaped interior plan. This was formed by the presence of a major road running from gate to gate along the long side of the fort, and secondary roads running to the front and rear gates respectively.

In the centre of the fort was the headquarters building (the principia). Close to it lay the house of the commanding officer and his family (the praetorium), and the granary, large enough to hold a range of food supplies for a year. The ordinary soldiers slept in timber barrack blocks, where they cooked their own food, and officers had their own rooms at one end of the block. Even the smallest fort had its own bathhouse, with a steam room and sauna, and a communal toilet with space for nine men at a time.

Attached to the forts, were annexes. These defended enclosures provided additional space for storage, workshops, and stables and often the bathhouses.

The best places to see the remains of forts and bathhouses today are Rough Castle, Bar Hill and Bearsden.

Fortlets were small enclosures attached to the rampart. Very much like forts in their playing-card shape and construction, they were essentially miniature forts measuring about 21m x 18m. Antonine Wall fortlets are similar to the ‘milecastles’ on Hadrian’s Wall, and such small mini-forts are known to have been built across the Empire.

Like the Antonine Wall rampart and the larger forts, the fortlets were constructed of turf on stone bases, and contained timber buildings, probably small barrack-blocks to house the soldiers who were assigned duty there. All known Antonine Wall fortlets had a south and north gate, the latter opening through the rampart and giving access to the area north of the Wall. These northern gateways remain a puzzle, as there are no known causeways across the ditch. It is possible that the gateways were originally used, or intended to be used, for movement north of the Wall, but that something changed.

Fortlets may have been located at points roughly mid-way between the larger forts, though they have not yet been identified at every interval. So far, a total of nine fortlets have been definitively identified. The location of some of these in very close proximity, or upon the same location, to full-fledged forts (for example, at Duntocher and Croy Hill) suggests that some forts may have been later additions, perhaps as part of a change in plan. Based on current understandings of the Wall’s building chronology and overall plan, we may expect to find many additional fortlets, probably spaced about one mile apart.

The best place to see the remains of a fortlet today is at Kinneil.

Three pairs of small platforms have been found which appear to be small ‘expansions’ of the rampart. They have stone bases and turf superstructure like the rampart. There use is unknown. They may have been beacon platforms, on which a fire would be lit to communicate a basic signal quickly along the wall. Another theory is that they were platforms from which catapults or other artillery could be fired.

At Rough Castle you can see a unique feature of the Wall; a type of mantrap known as lilia. These large oval pits to the north of the ditch and the outer mound may have been the first line of defence for threats coming from the north. Julius Caesar’s men referred to pits like this as lilia or lilies, because of their shape.

Recently another type of smaller pitted obstacle has been identified on the berm at several locations on the Wall. These are known as cippi and have been found on Hadrian’s Wall as well.

In addition to the components of the frontier itself, the sites of around twenty temporary camps have been identified through aerial archaeology and photography. These probably accommodated the labourers while they were constructing the Wall. None are actually visible on the ground today.