Waddon Hill
About
Soldiers of the Second Legion built this small fortlet on a narrow Dorset ridge around 50 CE, five years after the initial invasion, to hold the recently conquered southwest. Its garrison abandoned the post around the time of the Boudican revolt of 60 to 61 CE, as the army consolidated further north. Excavations here recovered some of the best-dated military pottery and equipment from the earliest phase of the Roman conquest. By 117 CE the fortlet had lain empty for more than half a century, its ramparts slowly eroding into the hillside.
What happened here
A legionary fortress holds five thousand men and is laid out to the same plan everywhere, so a transferred soldier knows his way around on the first day. Two main streets cross at the headquarters building, where the standards and the pay chest are kept in a sunken strongroom under guard. Around it: the commander's house with a courtyard garden, granaries raised on stone piers, a hospital, workshops, and long barrack blocks divided into rooms for eight men who cook and mess together. Training is daily, and building work is constant — soldiers make their own bricks, tiles and boots. A civilian town grows against the walls, with bars, traders and the unofficial families of men who are not legally allowed to marry.
Sources
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →