Newbrough Fortlet

Fortlet ad Novum Vadum

Auxiliary FortBritannia · Newbrough, Northumberland, EnglandBuilt 103 CE

About

Newbrough's fortlet sat on the Stanegate road between Corbridge and Vindolanda, roughly equidistant from both, its earthwork enclosure measuring about 195 by 190 feet and holding a small garrison of around 160 men. It went up around 103 CE, when Rome pulled back from Scotland and the Stanegate became the de facto frontier, with Newbrough built alongside Magnis and Brampton Old Church to cover the road at half-day marching intervals. St Peter's church now occupies the site of its later stone-built successor in the village churchyard. The site has been excavated only once, in 1930, leaving much of its interior layout still unrecorded.

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.