Magis Castle

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Burrow Walls / Borough Fort
Alternative name Magis
limes Britain
section Hadrian's Wall ( Cumbrian Coast Defense )
Dating (occupancy) Hadrianic ,
2nd to 4th century AD?
Type a) Numerus fort
b) Fleet station?
unit a) Numerus Pacensium
b) Classis Britannica ?
size approx. 122 × 90 meters,
1 ha
Construction Stone fort
State of preservation rectangular complex with rounded corners, not visible above ground
place Workington
Geographical location 54 ° 39 '18 "  N , 3 ° 32' 49.2"  W Coordinates: 54 ° 39 '18 "  N , 3 ° 32' 49.2"  W.
hf
Previous Alauna Fort (northeast)
Subsequently Gabrosentum fort (southwest)
Roman castles in Cumbria.png
Coin portrait of Hadrian
Sketch of the location of the fort
Altar for Minerva and Hercules, found in 1852 at the east gate of the fort
Remains of the wall of the medieval residential tower

Magis was a Roman auxiliary forces fort in the Parish Workington , Borough of Allerdale , county of Cumbria , England .

The fortress was part of a coastal defense system, consisting of a series of forts and watchtowers, along the west coast of Cumbria, which was intended to prevent the western flank of Hadrian's Wall from being bypassed . Extensive and well-preserved foundations of the fortifications and its interior buildings are likely to have been preserved in the ground of the fort. Both the Roman fortress and the medieval hall building or residential tower located on its area are representative of the construction technology of their time period.

Surname

The only ancient source in which the name of the fort is mentioned is the Notitia Dignitatum from the late 4th century. Magis is located there between the entry for Maglona (Old Carlisle, Cumbria) and Longovicum (Lanchester, Durham). The original assumption was that the camp in Burrow Walls and the fort were Gabroson , which is now equated with Moresby fort. The Roman place name is perhaps derived from the Celtic magos (= flat or field). In Latin (pronounced "màh-gis") it means "more" or "better".

location

The remains of the Hadrianic stone fort are on the Burrow Walls (or Borough) corridor on the north bank of the River Derwent, near its confluence with the Irish Sea, on a cattle pasture sloping slightly to the northwest, on the east bank of a pond (Siddick Pond Nature Reserve) in Workington / North Side. To the southwest is New Kelsick Farm. The western part of the camp area is cut through by an abandoned railway line and borders there on the old - now silted up river bed - of the Derwent , which today flows past the fort a little further south. A coastal road connected Maia with the neighboring forts of Alauna (Maryport) in the north and Gabrosentum (Moresby) in the south. In the late 2nd century the region belonged to the province of Britannia inferior , from the 4th century to the province of Britannia secunda and, after another administrative reform in 369 - probably - to the province of Valentia .

Research history and range of finds

The ruins of the Roman coastal defenses were first described by William Camden in the 16th century (Britannia), including those at Workington. The fort area has so far been little explored. In 1852 two Roman inscriptions were discovered. One was on a badly damaged altar that was found on the north bank of the Derwent . On its left side a goddess is depicted, probably Minerva , on the right side the legs and a piece of the club of Hercules can still be seen. The inscription mentions an Aurelius and a Secundus as donors. The second specimen, recovered from a drainage canal near the main gate of the fort, may have been a kind of building inscription (slab stone). The letter sequence SLAN could neither be translated nor its meaning recognized. Ceramic fragments and a large number of grinding stones for hand mills were also found there. Some human skeletons were uncovered near the western wall, but apparently they were not ceremonially buried there, but simply remained lying or buried. Upon contact with air they immediately began to disintegrate. Nearby were some cattle horns, as well as various animal teeth and bones, probably slaughterhouse waste that had been thrown over the wall. A minor excavation in the fort itself was carried out in 1955 by Richard Bellhouse and Brian Blake. Ceramics from the 4th century (so-called Huntcliff Ware) could be found in the late antique moat. In 1976 J. St. Joseph made aerial photographs of the fort area.

development

The region around Workington was probably settled before the Romans. The remains of an Iron Age building were found in the High Street . In 122 the Romans began building Hadrian's Wall, which stretched from Bowness on Solway ( Maia ) to Wallsend ( Segedunum ) on the North Sea. After 122, the Romans also built a security chain of cohort forts, small forts and watchtowers on the west coast of Cumbria. Their crews were supposed to fend off attacks by the Scots from Ireland and the Caledonii and Picts , the most ardent tribes in Scotland. The aim was to prevent the wall from being bypassed by landing on the west coast or by foraging through the two Solway fjords, which are relatively shallow at low tide. How far south the chain of fortifications along the Cumbrian west coast extended is not known. The discovery of other Roman forts and watchtowers, such as B. at the parish church in Moresby in the south and in the north at Risehow (Flimby) , Maryport and Crosscannonby suggest that the chain of fortifications continued far beyond the Solway coast to the south. The fort in Burrow Walls was also built around the middle of the 2nd century. Another small fort - or a watchtower - was believed to have stood on the south bank of the Derwent, at How Michael, near Chapel Bank. Only ceramics from the 4th century were recovered from a ditch dug in the interior in late antiquity. This indicates that the stone fort was reduced in area at that time. Based on the finds and the entry in the western Notitia, it is assumed that Magis was occupied until the late 4th or early 5th century. The camp was then probably destroyed by stone robbery, as evidenced by the two fragments of the wall that were part of a building that was probably built in Norman times. It may also be the remains of a residential tower (so-called Peel tower ) which served as a residence for the Lord of Seaton, Orne.

Fort

Smaller elevations of the fort can only be seen on its southeast side and on the eastern corner. Most of its foundations are likely to have been preserved. About a third of its area was lost when the Derwent was washed away. Part of the inner building of the camp and the moat of the late Roman fort can be seen on aerial photographs. The engraving in the 1950s revealed that it must be a fortress building typical of the 2nd century (rectangular with rounded corners, so-called playing card shape), which was approximately 90 meters wide and 122 meters long. Comparable to the castles in Beckfoot and Moresby . It covered an area of ​​about 1.1 hectares.

Its enclosing walls were 2.4 meters wide. The camp could be entered through four gates, but only the location of the east gate could be roughly determined. Traces of a street could be observed on the north wall, and there was probably a gate there as well. How they were constructed is unknown. The camp wall was probably also reinforced by a few square intermediate towers and four corner towers attached to the inside. In addition, it was surrounded by two, 4.8 and 5 meter wide weir ditches, separated by a 3.6 meter wide strip of land, as an approach obstacle. The width of the berm was 2.4 meters.

The fort probably also had the interior buildings that were standard for mid-imperial auxiliary troop camps: in the center the headquarters ( principia ), the commandant's house ( praetorium ), one or two granaries ( horrea ) and team barracks ( contubernia ), including functional buildings such as a bathhouse ( balineum ) , Workshops ( fabricae ), bakeries and a latrine.

The remains of cast masonry in the southwest of the fort area consist mainly of stones that must have been removed from the fort walls. They are each 13.2 meters and 8.8 meters long and, including the stone facing that has now disappeared, should originally have been around 2 meters wide.

garrison

Magis must have been manned by regular Roman soldiers from the middle of the 2nd century at the earliest. Legionnaires may also have stayed in the camp temporarily. They were usually not assigned to garrison service at the border, but sent special forces for the more demanding construction projects in the auxiliary troop forts. In the two Roman inscriptions found in Burrow Walls, however, no army unit and no names of soldiers or officers are given. Which unit built the fort or which other than the Pacensians were stationed there has therefore remained unknown to date.

Time position Troop name description
4th century AD? Numerus Pacensium
("a band of Pacensians") 		The location of this number has so far not been unequivocally localized, but is viewed by the majority of researchers as the fort in Burrow Walls. The Pacensis tribe, from which this troop was originally recruited, settled in the south of the Roman province of Lusitania , Portugal, the main town was the Colonia Civitas Pacensis (today Beja ), located in the region around the capital Lisbon ( Olisipo ). A number of the Roman army was one of the auxiliary troops, comprised between 200 and 300 men as a rule, and was mostly deployed in the border regions under the command of indigenous Roman officers. According to the Notitia, the troops were commanded by a prefect and counted among the Limitanei des Dux Britanniarum . Since it still appears in this late antique document, it could have stood there until the dissolution of the provincial army in the early 5th century.
2-4 Century AD Classis Britannica ?
("the British fleet") 		Whether naval units and ships of the canal fleet were stationed in the port of the fort has so far been unproven due to the lack of relevant finds, but due to the location and function of the fort, since the estuary of rivers were often ideal anchorages and the derwent was probably used to transport supplies made possible immediately in front of the fort.

Vicus and port

Epigraphic or archaeological evidence of the existence of a civil settlement or burial ground in the vicinity of the fort could not be brought up to this day. The port facility could have been on the north bank of the Derwent.

See also

literature

Remarks

  • RIB = Roman inscriptions in Britain
  1. ↑ Rivet / Smith 1979, pp. 406-407, Notitia Dignitatum Occ. XL, 29.
  2. ↑ RIB 806 , RIB 807 , Bellhouse 1956, pp. 30ff., Dickinson 1880, pp. 22-23.
  3. ↑ Bellhouse 1956, pp. 37-41.
  4. ↑ Bellhouse 1956, pp. 30-45.
  5. ↑ Notitia Dignitatum Occ. XL, 29
  6. ↑ Bellhouse 1956, p. 38.

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