This site is entirely user-supported. See how you can help.
We don't have any photos of this monument yet. Why don't you be the first to send us one?
If Google Street View is available, the image is from the best available vantage point looking, if possible, towards the location of the monument. Where it is not available, the satellite view is shown instead.
Latitude: 55.9574 / 55°57'26"N
Longitude: -4.073 / 4°4'22"W
OS Eastings: 270675
OS Northings: 675759
OS Grid: NS706757
Mapcode National: GBR 16.XNZ5
Mapcode Global: WH4PX.DJQB
Entry Name: Bar Hill, Roman temporary camp SW of
Scheduled Date: 19 February 1999
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
Source ID: SM7457
Schedule Class: Cultural
Category: Roman: Antonine Wall
Location: Kirkintilloch
County: East Dunbartonshire
Electoral Ward: Kirkintilloch East and North and Twechar
Traditional County: Dunbartonshire
The monument comprises the remains of a Roman camp represented by cropmarks visible on oblique aerial photographs.
The monument lies in open arable ground immediately to the SW of Bar Hill Roman fort and the Antonine Wall. The monument originally comprised a rectangular camp defended by a rampart of turf and earth and a single ditch. The defences have been flattened by ploughing but the ditch still survives and shows up as a dark line on aerial photographs.
Trial excavations in the early 1980s found the ditch to be 2m wide and between 0.5 and 0.7m deep. Fragments of worked wood were recovered from the ditch, indicating the survival of important waterlogged organic materials. The camp would have housed soldiers, almost certainly those building the Antonine Wall and possibly also Bar Hill fort, and therefore forms part of the frontier complex.
The area to be scheduled encompasses the temporary camp and an area around it in which traces of associated activity may be expected to survive. It is irregular in shape with maximum dimensions of 150m NNW-SSE by 110m as marked in red on the accompanying map.
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
The monument is of national importance because of its potential to contribute to our understanding of Roman fortifications. The ditches and interior of the camp may be expected to contain material relating to the construction of Roman defensive structures as well as the social and economic background of the sites. The camp is also associated with internationally important Antonine Wall, and would have been used to house soldiers, almost certainly those employed in construction of the Wall and possibly also the nearby Bar Hill fort.
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
Bibliography
RCAHMS records the monument as NS 77 NW 32.
References:
Keppie, L. and Walker, J. (1989) 'Some excavations along the line of the Antonine Wall, 1981-85', Proc Soc Antiq Scot, Vol. 119, 151-3, no. 14 illus 6, 7.
Keppie, L. and Walker, J. (1983) 'Bar Hill (Kirkintilloch p), stone slab; Roman temporary camp', Discovery Excav Scot, 32.
Keppie, L. and Walker, J. (1982) 'Bar Hill (Kirkintilloch p), Roman temporary camp, possible', Discovery Excav Scot, 29-30.
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
Other nearby scheduled monuments