Site type FORT ANNEXE (ROMAN), ROMAN FORT (ROMAN)
Canmore ID 65890
Site Number NX98SE 8.00
NGR NX 968 818
Council DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY
Parish KIRKMAHOE
Former Region DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY
Former District NITHSDALE
Former County DUMFRIES-SHIRE

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Archaeological Notes

NX98SE 8 968 818.

(NX 9687 8180) ROMAN FORT (R) (Site of)
OS 6" map (1948)

Excavations at Carzield in March 1939 revealed an Antonine cavalry fort measuring some 500 by 560' over the ramparts.
The defences are still visible at the SE angle (together with about 300' of each adjacent side), the NE angle, and a sector of the W side. The fort was surrounded by a turf rampart and a double ditch, with a third ditch on the S side, and there appears to have been a small annexe E of the fort.
E Birley and I A Richmond 1942; J K St Joseph 1951

The fort bath-house was located and planned in 1956, and the apparent location of the civilian annexe was found at NX 9697 8194, in 1952.
A E Truckell 1955, 1956

The only surveyable traces of this fort are the scarp of the ditch at the E angle and along the NE and SE sides, and the counterscarp of the ditch on the N angle. The outer edge of the ditch is also traceable on the NE and SE sides. Elsewhere traces are vague and obscured by undergrowth, etc. No visible traces of the civilian annexe were found. Surveyed at 1/2500.
Visited by OS (WDJ) 25 June 1964

Further excavations in 1967-8 among the rubbish spread located a large clay-lined rubbish-pit at NX 968 821. It measured 30' by 5 1/2'. Finds from the Carzield excavations are in Dumfries Museum.
J Williams 1968; A McCracken 1967

Further references to the continuing excavations at the Carzield rubbish pits, and the material found.
M Henig 1969; A E Truckell 1973; J Williams 1976-7

Birley and Richmond, E and I A (1942) 'The Roman fort at Carzield', Trans Dumfriesshire Galloway Natur Hist Antiq Soc, 3rd, vol.22
Page(s): 156-63

Breeze, D J (1979a) Roman Scotland: a guide to the visible remains, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Page(s): 37 Held at RCAHMS E.10.1.BRE

Breeze, D J (1982a) The northern frontiers of Roman Britain, London
Page(s): 101 fig.19 Held at RCAHMS E.10.BRE