Brocavum

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Brougham Castle was built in the northern part of the Roman fort Brocavum .

Brocavum is the Latin name of a Roman fort in the village of Brougham near Penrith in the English county of Cumbria . The fort has been preserved to this day in the form of earthworks , but archaeological excavations have not yet been carried out there.

Place and date

The Eamont and Lowther rivers, which flow into each other to the west of the site , give the site natural protection. Like the two rivers, three Roman roads met at the fort: the route from York via Scotch Corner - Stainmore Pass - Brough under Stainmore - Kirkby Thore to Brougham (along today's A66), the route from Manchester and Lancaster via Burrow-in Lonsdale - Middleton - Low Burrow - Bridge (Tebay) to Brougham (along the West Coast Railway Line) and the route from the Roman port of Glannoventa (Ravenglass) via Hard Knott - Galava (Ambleside) - High Street to Brougham. From Brocavum the road led north to Luguvalium (Carlisle) via Old Penrith (along the A6). Since the Flavian period (80 AD) there may also have been a road west from Old Penrith or Brocavum to Troutbeck to an as yet undiscovered fort in Keswick , to a fort in Papcastle and on to Alauna (Maryport).

There was also a civilian settlement , part of which was excavated during the construction of a pipeline from Hackthorpe to Penrith in 2008, and a cemetery excavated in the 1960s.

Six inscriptions dedicated to the local deity Belatucadros were discovered at Brougham, perhaps indicating that "worship was concentrated there". The settlement center of the Carvetii , a tribe of pre-Roman and Roman times, may have been in nearby Clifton Dykes . In addition to the estuary and the road crossing, this could have been an additional factor in determining the location of the fort after the Roman conquest.

Ramparts of the Roman fort in the foreground, Brougham Castle behind and 18th century Carleton Hall on the left.

The dating of the fort is uncertain, but it probably played an important role from the earliest times. The complex is believed to have been set up shortly after the revolt of Venutius in the early 1970s. An early Flavian occupation is likely, even if the findings of the excavation carried out in the 1960s come from a cemetery from the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD.

Access and conservation

The medieval Brougham Castle now covers part of the site administered by the English Heritage . It is likely that building materials from the Roman fort were used to build the castle. The fort is run together with the castle as the Scheduled Monument "Brougham Roman fort and Brougham Castle".

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Esmonde Cleary, A., Darmc, R. Talbert, S. Vanderbilt, R. Warner, S. Gillies, T. Elliott: Places: 89127 (Brocavum). Pleiades, accessed September 17, 2015 .
  2. ^ Fascinating trip back to Roman times in the pipeline for experts. (No longer available online.) In: The Cumberland News. November 21, 2008, archived from the original on April 26, 2011 ; accessed on September 17, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.cumberlandnews.co.uk
  3. ^ The Roman Cemetery at Brougham, Cumbria Excavations 1966-67. Archeology Data Service, accessed September 17, 2015 .
  4. ^ NJ Higham: The Northern Counties to AD 1000. In: Regional History of England. Longman, London 1986, ISBN 0-582-49276-9 , p. XV, 392.
  5. ^ NJ Higham, GDB Jones: The Carvetii. In: Peoples of Roman Britain. Alan Sutton, Stroud 1985, ISBN 0-86299-088-2 , pp. IX, 158.
  6. ^ David Shotter: Romans and Britons in North-West England. 3. Edition. Center of North-West Regional Studies, University of Lancaster, Lancaster 2004, ISBN 1-86220-152-8 , pp. XII, 204.
  7. ^ David Shotter: Romans and Britons in North-West England. 3. Edition. Center of North-West Regional Studies, University of Lancaster, Lancaster 2004, ISBN 1-86220-152-8 , p. 62.
  8. ^ Henry Summerson, Michael Trueman, Stuart Harrison: Brougham Castle, Cumbria: A Survey and Documentary History . (= Research Series No. 8). Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 1998, ISBN 1-873124-25-2 , pp. VIII, 173.

Coordinates: 54 ° 39 '14.4 "  N , 2 ° 43' 8.8"  W.