Description

The monument is a Roman road of 1st or 2nd century date, which forms part of a network of Roman military sites stretching over much of the south of Scotland.

The Roman road consists of a grass-covered cambered mound running SSE-NNW for a distance of about 115m. The mound, which emerges from a field boundary at its SSE end and has a sparse covering of deciduous trees, measures about 9m wide and rises to a height of about 20cm above the surrounding ground surface. Its edges are defined by shallow indentations which may represent the remains of drainage ditches. To the E of the mound and running almost parallel is a pronounced bank which is likely to be the remains of an old field or woodland boundary. To the W of the mound and running parallel is another low bank which may be part of the original Roman construction, although it may equally be an artefact of more recent use of the road, which is understood to have continued into the 18th century. Both of these adjacent banks disappear towards the NNW end of the road, where some metalling is exposed. Limited archaeological excavations at the SSE end of the road in 1952 and 1985 showed that the road was lined with kerbstones and that there was a clay-lined ditch on either side of the mound.

The area to be protected is irregular on plan and includes the Roman road and an area around it within which material relating to its construction and use may survive, as marked in red on the attached map. The area is bounded on the S and N by modern post-and-wire fences and on the W by a drystane dyke. All above-ground elements of the fences and dyke are excluded from the scheduling.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Statement of Scheduling

Statement of National Importance

The monument's archaeological significance can be expressed as follows:

Intrinsic characteristics: The monument is a rare and well-preserved example of an extant section of Roman road. Archaeological excavations of part of the monument have shown that it contains well-preserved archaeological material, enhancing its potential to improve understanding of Roman military engineering and road construction techniques. It is likely that the ditches lining the road contain important environmental and organic information relating to the surrounding natural environment at the time of the road's construction, use and abandonment.

Contextual characteristics: The monument is a rare surviving section of a network of Roman roads that covered much of the south of what is now Scotland, connecting a large number of Roman military constructions dating to the Flavian invasion of the 1st century AD and the Antonine re-occupation of the 2nd century AD. The monument lies less than 4km from the Roman fort at Corbiehall, which was occupied in the 1st and 2nd centuries, underlining its strategic importance to the Roman road network in successive phases of Roman military conquest and occupation.

Associative characteristics: The monument is a product of the earliest documented military invasion of what is now Scotland and can be associated with a number of historical figures, including Julius Agricola, governor of Britain during the reigns of the Flavian emperors Vespasian, Titus and Domitian in the late 1st century, and Lollius Urbicus, the governor who oversaw the reoccupation of southern Scotland under the early reign of Antoninus Pius around AD 140.

National Importance: The monument is of national importance because it has an inherent potential to make a significant addition to our understanding of the past, in particular the road construction techniques used by the imperial Roman Empire in its invasions and occupations of what is now Scotland in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. This potential is enhanced by its good state of preservation and proximity to the major Roman fort at Corbiehall. The loss of this monument would significantly affect the completeness of the network of Roman military sites in southern Scotland.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Sources

Bibliography

The monument is recorded by RCAHMS as NS94NW 15, NS94NW 15.01 and NS94NW 15.02.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland