Accessibility

Font Size

100% 150% 200%

Background Colour

Default Contrast
Close Reset

Excavation

Date May 2008

Event ID 576936

Category Recording

Type Excavation

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/576936

NS 6181 7265 In May 2008 a four-day excavation explored an area c80m E of the site of the Roman fort at Cadder, Bishopbriggs, immediately S of the Forth and Clyde Canal and N of the factory premises of Marley Eternit Ltd, in the hope of locating the extramural bathhouse generally believed to have been quarried away along with the fort itself in the early 1940s. Surface observation suggested that the quarrying terminated c110m W of the zone examined, a picture seemingly confirmed by an OS sheet (Plan 6172) of 1957 and an aerial photograph of Marley’s premises believed to have been taken in the 1960s. A small segment in the

northeast quadrant of the fort and much of any ‘annexe’ area to the E appear untouched.

Four small trenches were placed to catch the likely S kerb of the Antonine Wall and more particularly to investigate areas immediately to its S, where the bathhouse was thought to lie. However, excavation indicated that the ground had been disturbed, with a spread of waste material from the adjacent Marley tile works deposited over several decades, and in part compressed. The stone base of the Antonine Wall was not located, nor was any stonework from a bathhouse, or any of the distinctive Roman flue-tiles which might have been expected to be proliferate in its vicinity.

Some geophysical survey might be attempted in the future on other, apparently undisturbed, level ground to the W, but in the immediate area of the 2008 excavation only the use of an earthmoving machine over a wider area would elucidate the sequence of activity and determine whether any Roman structures have survived.

Archive: With excavator pending publication

Funder: Historic Scotland (Culture 2000 Programme)

LJF Keppie (Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery), 2008

People and Organisations

References