Fnurban #30 A Mighty (Roman) Fortress

Following on from last time's Roman theme,  I have recently visited an impressive Roman site - Burgh Castle,  on the Norfolk coast.  Last month we spent a few days at Great Yarmouth, and Burgh is just out of town from there, so we took the chance to see it. It was well worth a visit! 

About a 15-minute drive out of  Yarmouth town, the site is owned by the Norfolk Archaeoligical Trust (the stone walls are managed by English Heritage). There's a car park, then a short walk across a field to the site - passing the nearby round-towered church (a Norfolk and Suffolk speciality) which is also worth a  look. .You are greeted with this sight: 

 

What you are seeing here is just over half the width - the gap in the wall to the left is the East Gate of the fort, which is in the middle of the East wall. Overall, that wall looks to be a bit over 200m long, and as you can see it is pretty much complete.  That goes for the North (shorter) Wall too, and the South Wall is about half-preserved - the West Wall has gone, probably tumbled into the river it sat alongside. So overall, more than half the fort's walls remain, and they survive to their original height, too, with complete bastions at intervals along the walls and at the corners. 

Bastion in East Wall

 

and a closer view, note red tile courses

North-East corner

Visitors can go through the gate and look around inside the enclosed area, which gives views across marshes and the River Waveney running next to the site.  There are no remaining structures or ruins inside the walls, but you get a good impression of the area that would have been enclosed - about 2.2 hectares in all. 

It seems that Burgh was built in 'the late 200s AD' which I take to mean late in the 3rd Century, as part of the 'Saxon Shore' ( Litus Saxonicum ) chain of forts which stretched from Brancaster, Norfolk, to Porchester, Hampshire - the name seems to mean 'the shore attacked by the Saxons' or  'The shore of the Saxon Sea' .  It is possible that the forts may have originally been built as naval bases for controlling and protecting trade across the North Sea,  but they are now mainly associated with defending the coast of Roman Britain from Saxon invaders, whose first documented raid on Britain was in 286 AD.  The landscape has changed since then, but originally Burgh would have stood at the mouth of a 'Great Esturary' into which flowed several rivers,  with another fort, Caister Castle, standing on the oppoiste side.  The fort would have been able to house 500-1000 infantry, or up to  500 cavalry. It is known that the garrsion included a cavalry  unit called the Equites Stablesiani.  There is also substantial archaeological evidence of a significant civilian settlement ( vicus )  outside the walls.

The walls themselves are about 3.2m thick at the bottom, 1.5m thick at the top, and 4.6m tall - complete except for a parapet which would have stood on top. They were  built with  a rubble and mortar core and  flint facing stones, with up to seven triple layers of red fired clay tiles helping bond the facing stones to the core. Six of the original  ten bastions survive.   All very impressive - the relatively complete walls give a powerful impression of how imposing the fort would have been when in use. Needless to say, if you are interested in Roman military history, you really should see this!  By chance we visited on an 'open day' with a stall and display by the Norfolk Archaeological Trust, which allowed us to buy a guidebook covering Burgh, Caister and Brancaster - from which the information here is taken. Of course there are websites - from English Heritage and Norfolk Archaeological Trust.   

Great Yarmouth itself has a decent selection of historical sites, including some stretches of medieval town walls - and for those interested in the  ECW, you can visit the Elizabethan House Museum,  a 16th Century merchant's house  with its rather grand 'Conspiracy Room': 

 It seems that in 1648 the heads of the New Model Army ( including Cromwell ) were  at Yarmouth, and the house's owner John Carter was commander of the local Trained Bands, and would have hosted the senior officers. It is said that in this room a meeting was held, at which the decision was taken to put King Charles on trial for treason - this of course resulted in his execution the following year. 'A great reckoning in a (fairly) small room', perhaps?

That's enough historical meandering  for now.  In the meantime there has been a little hobby progress, as I have been getting on with painting my 'D-Day Dodgers'  WW2 Indian battalion 

 

Very much a work  in progress, but we are getting there - perhaps the next post here will show off the completed unit, if I keep up with the painting sessions.  Meanwhile, keep well, everyone.