Binchester
About
Roman troops established this fort around 79 CE to guard the crossing of the River Wear on Dere Street, the main road running north to the Stanegate frontier. Its first-phase ditches remained open and in use through Trajan's reign, only being filled in sometime between 125 and 150 CE as the fort was remodeled. Binchester went on to become one of the most extensively excavated Roman military sites in Britain, with University of Durham teams working the site for over a decade. Its excavated bathhouse retains some of the best-preserved Roman under-floor heating in the country.
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.
Sources
Nearby
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