Category: Roman - Heddon-on-the-Wall Local History Society

Barcombe Hill above Vindolanda Roman Fort

22/2/2026

Iron Age hillfort & Roman Signal Station on Barcombe Hill above Vindolanda Roman Fort, Northumberland.

Location: NY 7830 6681

Keys to the Past: N6569

Scheduled Monument: 1018536

LIDAR (DSM, 1m) copyright Environment Agency (2022) - enhanced for archaeology.

View of Vindolanda Roman Fort from Roman Signal Station on Barcombe Hill. 3D model from lidar data.

3D LiDAR landscape on Sketchfab: https://skfb.ly/pGKN9

Site of Roman Signal Station, Barcombe The ditch here, parallel with the escarpment edge, is the north side of a prehistoric defended settlement, thought to be Iron Age in date, probably extended by later Roman quarrying for stone. Within the enclosure, the Romans constructed a Signal Station providing inter-visibility north to Hadrian's Wall and west to Vindolanda Fort NY7866 : View west from site of Roman Signal Station, Barcombe. However, excavation showed that it may have only been in use for a short period during the later first century AD. LinkExternal link (Archive LinkExternal link ) A rectangular ditch with rounded corners around the mound in the north-west part of the larger enclosure is clearly visible in aerial views. Photo A Curtis (2012).

View west from site of Roman Signal Station, Barcombe Hill. Barcombe Hill trig point is on the extreme left, Long Stone on the peak just left of centre. Although a misty day, Vindolanda Roman Fort can just be made out in the valley, right of centre, with the straight line of the Stanegate Roman Road climbing the ridge to its right. The Signal Station would have provided good views north to Hadrian's Wall including Housesteads Roman Fort to the north-east. Photo A Curtis (2012).

Risingham Roman Fort (Habitancum), West Woodburn

15/2/2026

LIDAR (DSM, 1m) copyright Environment Agency (2022) - enhanced for archaeology.

Risingham Roman Fort (Habitancum), West Woodburn, Northumberland.

Great weather for a site visit yesterday and, unusually for me, spent some of it with the Romans.

3D lidar landscape: https://skfb.ly/p9Cpu

Habitancum Roman Fort & Medieval Settlement is a Scheduled Monument protected by law:
https://historicengland.org.uk/.../the.../list-entry/1008561

Devil's Causeway, Bolam

12/2/2026

Devil's Causeway, Bolam, Northumberland.

A nice section of the now unused Roman Road passing close by the Bronze Age tumulus & standing stone known as The Poind and His Man.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Causeway

Photos: Andy Curtis (2014): https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4226462

LIDAR (DSM, 1m) copyright Environment Agency (2022) - enhanced for archaeology.

Roman Forts at Low Learchild

12/2/2026

LIDAR (DTM, 1m) copyright Environment Agency (2022) - enhanced for archaeology.

The Roman Forts at Low Learchild, Northumberland, UK.
Just visible as shadows at the centre of this LIDAR image (DTM, 1m). Learchild Roman fort is believed to have had the place name ALAVNA.

The site at Learchild is a Scheduled Monument protected by law.
https://historicengland.org.uk/.../the.../list-entry/1006440

The two forts have been almost completely reduced by ploughing and forestry, and cut by a bridleway and now disused railway.

Lots more information and geophysical survey here: https://romanroads.org/reports/low_learchild_smx006_final.pdf

Aqueduct to Great Chesters (Aesica) Roman Fort

11/2/2026

Looking at the lidar evidence for the course of the aqueduct which led water some 10km from the Caw Burn to Great Chesters (Aesica) Roman Fort on Hadrian's Wall. Although shown in full on the OS map, several parts are missing (perhaps never completed or damaged by later drainage and agriculture). Its course over valleys assumed to have been on wooden or stone bridges. The elevation profile (created in QGIS from the DTM) shows a fall of only 10-12m over the whole length. The LIDAR view is DSM, 1m copyright Environment Agency. Contours (at interval of 1m) were created in QGIS from DTM.

The Roman aqueduct to Great Chesters from the Caw Burn is a Scheduled Monument (https://historicengland.org.uk/.../the.../list-entry/1003788)

3D LIDAR landscape: https://skfb.ly/pxqDN

Maiden Way, Culgaith, Cumbria

11/2/2026

LIDAR (DSM, 1m) copyright Environment Agency (2022) - enhanced for archaeology.

LIDAR suggests new line for the Roman Road, Maiden Way, through the parish of Culgaith, Cumbria, crossing the Kirkland Beck just east of the village.

Maiden Way (Roman Road) - 3D LIDAR landscape:
https://skfb.ly/pxoVw

Corbridge Roman Town

11/2/2026

Corbridge Roman Town, Northumberland.

The remains at Corbridge are largely those of a Roman town, 2½ miles south of Hadrian's Wall, which developed after AD 160 around a base for legionary soldiers. This replaced a succession of forts on the site, built from about AD 85 where one of the main routes northwards crossed the River Tyne. Corbridge became one of only two substantial towns in the Hadrian's Wall zone and remained a vibrant urban community until the last days of Roman Britain.

English Heritage: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/.../corbridge-roman...

Hadrian's Wall, Wallhouses

10/2/2026

Hadrian's Wall at Wallhouses, Northumberland - 'slighting' of the Vallum.

One thing I like about looking at the LIDAR images is that they remind you about things I have forgotten (or perhaps never knew).

In this sector along Hadrian's Wall for example the wall itself lies under the modern road (Military Road). The north wall ditch is often extant and, when not ploughed out, so are the impressive earthworks of the Vallum, here closely parallel to the line of the Wall and to its south. The ditch of the Vallum in my enhanced LIDAR is the dark line between the two white dashed lines of the marginal mounds. These were built from the spoil of the ditch and were continuous so why do they now appear as regular segments?

When constructed the Vallum only had very few crossing points aligned with the Wall forts. However, when Hadrian's Wall was abandoned around 140AD for a new frontier in Scotland (the Antonine Wall) there was a systemmatic slighting of the Vallum creating a large number of crossings across the ditch using soil taken from the linear mounds. 35 beaks were made every Roman mile providing an interval of crossings of around 40m. "We can surely agree that the very regularity of the action of slighting the Vallum points to the hand of the army" (Breeze 2015).

When the Romans returned to Hadrian's Wall a few years later they clearly didn't bother to fill all the gaps in the linear mounds and there seems to be conflicting evidence about whether the Vallum ditch was completely reinstated as originally built.. I wonder if the LIDAR has enough resolution to see the remains of ditch crossings?

Breeze, D. J. (2015). The Vallum of Hadrian's Wall. Archaeologia Aeliana Series 5. Vol 44, pp. 1-30.
https://doi.org/10.5284/1061298

Enhanced LIDAR (DSM, 1m) © Environment Agency (2022).

Enhanced LIDAR (DSM, 1m) © Environment Agency (2022).

Chew Green Roman fort and camps

4/2/2026

LIDAR (DSM, 1m) copyright Environment Agency (2022) - enhanced for archaeology.

Chew Green, Northumberland.

Roman fort, two Roman fortlets, two Roman camps, a section of Roman road (Dere Street), and a medieval settlement and chapel at Chew Green in Cheviot Hills.

Chew Green is a Scheduled Monument protected by law:
https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1015847

LIDAR (DSM, 1m) copyright Environment Agency (2022) - enhanced for archaeology.

Plan from Richmond, I. A. and Keeney, G. S. (1937). The Roman works at Chew Green, Coquetdalehead. Archaeologia Aeliana Series 4. Vol 14, pp. 129-150.
https://doi.org/10.5284/1059983

Supposed Roman Signal Station (or small Roman fortlet), & cross-dyke (bank and ditch crossing the ridge) close by the England-Scotland Border on Brownhart Law, N of Chew Green. The track heading north into Scotland is the line of the Roman Dere Street (later called Gamelspath). The cross-dyke is an example of numerous similar earthworks of uncertain date that may have been constructed to constrain traffic along the cross-border tracks or to act as boundaries between adjacent areas of territory.

LIDAR (DSM, 1m) copyright Environment Agency (2022) - enhanced for archaeology.

Roman Temporary Camp, Milestone House, Haltwhistle

3/2/2026

LIDAR (DSM, 1m) copyright Environment Agency (2022) - enhanced for archaeology.

Roman Temporary Camp at Milestone House, Haltwhistle, Northumberland.

"The camp occupies a low point between a succession of north facing limestone escarpments, and it is these which account for its irregular layout. The defences enclose an area of 7ha and are best preserved on the west side and the west end of the south side where the ramparts reach a maximum height of 1.2m above the bottom of the external ditch, which is 0.3m deep. There is no rampart visible on the north side, which is delimited by the edge of a natural crag, making a rampart superfluous. There are gateways in the central points of the south and west ramparts, each with external defence banks. A gateway on the north east side is indicated by the presence of an external defence bank, though there is now no visible trace left of the adjacent rampart in this section. A later rectangular enclosure was constructed in the south east corner; its origin and purpose are not yet fully understood. Its internal dimensions are 37m from north to south by 75m east to west. A number of small, circular earthworks occur inside and outside the camp, ranging in diameter from 4m to 10m and about 0.3m high. These structures are probably the remains of simple limekilns, known locally as `sow' kilns, used as recently as the beginning of the 20th century to produce lime for fertilizer. To the immediate north of the camp lie the remains of a stretch of the main Roman east-west road, the Stanegate. Although disturbed by later hollow ways and stone robbing, its course is clear on the ground. The road runs along the high ground in the east, and then runs just to the south of the crest of the gentle ridge occupied by the Mare and Foal standing stones (the subject of a separate scheduling) and then along the ridge itself as it runs west towards Haltwhistle Burn. The road measures on average about 8m across throughout its course. Buried ditches flank the road on either side."

Scheduled Monument protected by law: 1010932

Ordnance Survey (1:10,000) - National Library of Scotland.