Forden Gaer

Auxiliary FortBritannia · Forden, Montgomeryshire, Powys, WalesBuilt 78 CE

About

This 6.3-hectare fort guarded an important ford across the River Severn on the road between Caersws and Wroxeter, built around 78 CE. It remained garrisoned through Trajan's reign while a civilian settlement grew up alongside it in the early second century, eventually enclosed by its own triple-ditched boundary. The site would later be destroyed or abandoned around 296 CE, then reoccupied in 343 before a final withdrawal under Valentinian I. Its scale made it one of the largest auxiliary forts in the Welsh Marches.

What happened here

Five hundred men, sometimes a thousand, recruited from a province rather than from citizens, and often stationed a long way from where they were raised. Cavalry units get a bigger fort and far more stabling; the smell tells you which kind you are in before the plan does. The layout copies a legionary fortress at a quarter of the size — headquarters, commander's house, granaries, barracks, a bath house usually built outside the walls because of the fire risk. Duties are patrolling, escorting, customs, and policing rather than pitched battle. After twenty-five years a man is discharged with citizenship for himself and his children, recorded on a bronze diploma he keeps for life. A village grows outside the gate within a decade.