Vindolanda – a Roman Fort, Northumberland, England

Posted on 1 October 2022 by Katrina

It was way back in April that we visited the Roman camp at Vindolanda, as you can see from the photo above it’s still a very rural and scenic part of the country.

There are still excavations ongoing here but the photo below is of a replica gateway, to give an idea of what it would have looked like when the Romans were here.

Below is a model of the whole camp which is in the on site museum.

Some of the remains that have been dug out look quite well preserved as you can see below.

Below you can see the remains of a hypocaust, their heating system. They had all ‘mod cons’ those Romans in Britain, they needed it as it’s a really cold area of England, in the autumn and winter.

They’ve built a replica temple which is well situated by the wee river, a good place to rest and have a coffee.

You can read about Vindolanda here and here. The Romans were in this area of North East England (Northumberland) from around 85 AD to 370 AD.

A Mithraic Temple, Carrawburgh, Northumberland

Posted on 19 August 2021 by Katrina

After we visited the Roman fort at Chesters we drove on to see the remains of a Mithraic temple which is in the middle of a field. I have to say though that the temple itself isn’t very well signposted, so we ended up yomping over a field full of indignant sheep towards what was definitely a ruin in the distance, but that turned out to be the ruin of a farm building. Oh well, it was all good exercise and we gave the sheep something else to think about other than grass!

We eventually got on the right track, the signpost was on a small fencepost just the width of the wood, so about 3 inches square.

This is the road by the car park at Carrawburgh, Northumberland, as you can see the road is very straight so presumably this was originally the Roman road.

The temple is quite small but as the god Mithras was popular with soldiers it was probably quite well used by the men at Chesters Fort.

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You can read about Mithras here.

The middle column of the altar has a stone offerings dish and visitors have been leaving coins, sweets and a big piece of wood as worshippers would have done. I was a really big spender and offered up 2 pence!

Chesters Roman Fort part 2

Posted on 12 August 2021 by Katrina

The ruins that you can see in the distance below are what remains of the camp commandant’s house. As you can see the area that the fort is set in is scenic but I imagine it would have looked a bit different in Roman times, nearly 2,000 years ago, however the land here was very fertile even back then it seems and was able to provide enough in the way of crops for humans and horses. The fort was known to the Romans as Cilurnum.

Closer up you can imagine that it must have been a lot more comfortable than any of the other accommodation, and at least he had central heating, I think the bricks are part of that system.