Description
The monument comprises the buried remains of a Roman temporary camp. The camp is visible as the cropmarks of its defensive ditches on oblique aerial photographs and sections have been confirmed by geophysical survey and excavation. The majority of the camp lies within the grounds of St Mary's Primary School, Bo'ness, with further remains lying to the north northeast in Kinglass Park and in open ground to the east. The site lies at around 65m above sea level.
Dating to the mid-second century AD, the camp is associated with the construction of the Antonine Wall, situated approximately 175m to the north. The cropmarks visible on aerial photographs of the monument represent buried archaeological features. These cropmarks reveal the rounded southwest corner of the camp's perimeter ditch, which lies in playing fields approximately 100m southeast of St Mary's Primary School. Approximately 30m of the camp's west side and 95m of the south side have been identified. The cropmark shows a ditch that is up to 2.5m in breadth. Aerial photographs also show a gateway through the southern ditch but don't show associated defensive outworks. Further remains of the camp are likely to survive within Kinglass Park approximately 130m to the north. Excavations in 2023 uncovered a small section of the northern ditch to the east of Kinglass Park. This has confirmed the alignment of the northern perimeter.
The scheduled area is in four sections. It includes the remains described above and an area around within which evidence relating to the monument's construction, use and abandonment is expected to survive, as shown in red on the accompanying map. The scheduling specifically excludes the above-ground elements of all fences, brick walls and the top 30cm of all paths and hard standings, to allow for their maintenance.
Statement of National Importance
Cultural Significance
The monument's cultural significance can be expressed as follows:
Intrinsic characteristics
The monument retains elements of its original form, despite the remains of the camp only being visible as cropmarks. These show that evidence of the camp's ditches still survives below the topsoil. A typical Roman temporary camp comprised an open internal area, where soldiers pitched tents in regularly arranged rows, enclosed by a low mound of earth topped with a palisade of sharpened stakes. Beyond the camp's rampart lay an external V-shaped ditch and it is the buried remains of this feature that often appear as cropmarks on aerial photographs. This site is visible as cropmarks of the SW corner of the camp's ditch, a short length of the W ditch and a long stretch of the S ditch, which includes a gateway.
The clarity of the cropmarks indicates that the monument is a well-preserved archaeological site and has the potential to provide high-quality archaeological evidence relating to the construction and occupation of the camp. Based on the results of excavations of similar sites elsewhere in Scotland, we know that the interiors of Roman temporary camps offer good potential for the survival of evidence such as rubbish pits, bread ovens and possibly even stake-holes from tents that can tell us more about the lives of the soldiers who occupied the site.
Contextual characteristics
The camp probably provided temporary accommodation for Roman legionaries building the nearby stretch of the Antonine Wall and it is one of 20 such sites currently known along the line of the frontier. Archaeologists first recognised the relationship between these camps and the frontier in the 1950s when aerial photography became an important survey tool. The relationship of the camps to our understanding of the Antonine Wall is particularly important as only on this frontier can camps be directly related to the building of the frontier, our information being supplemented by the information provided on the well-known and internationally important distance slabs.
Built in the years following AD 142, the Antonine Wall represents Scotland's most significant Roman monument. Measuring 60km in length, the Wall spans the narrow neck of land between Bo'ness on the River Forth and Old Kilpatrick on the River Clyde. Incorporating a continuous system of wall and ditch, the Antonine Wall is accompanied at regular intervals by forts and fortlets linked by a road system. It is one of only three linear barriers to be found along the 2000km European frontier of the Roman Empire, the other examples being Hadrian's Wall and the Rhine limes, which are unique to Germany and Britain. As a frontier, the Antonine Wall is interpreted as a means of controlling and monitoring cross-border movement into the Roman province to the south rather than a fortification intended to repel significant invasion. However, it is likely that the frontier's physical presence in the landscape, a continuous barrier spanning central Scotland, served as a deterrent to smaller-scale raiding. Although constructed by legionaries, the garrisons of the Antonine Wall's forts and fortlets were composed of auxiliaries, who were soldiers recruited from the non-citizen population of the Roman Empire.
Associative characteristics
The Antonine Wall was established by the Emperor Antoninus Pius (AD 138-61) after successful campaigning in AD 139-42 by the Governor of Britain, Quintus Lollius Urbicus, and replaced Hadrian's Wall as the empire's most northerly frontier. The Antonine Wall remained in use until it was abandoned, possibly after AD 165, when the Roman army withdrew from Scotland and the frontier line shifted again to Hadrian's Wall. The construction and purpose of the Antonine Wall exemplifies the wider system of military frontier management, termed limes, which stretched over the whole of the Roman Empire.
The Antonine Wall forms an extension to the existing transnational 'Frontiers of the Roman Empire' World Heritage Site that includes the German limes and Hadrian's Wall. The UNESCO World Heritage Committee approved the addition of the Antonine Wall on 7 July 2008.
National Importance
The monument is of national importance because it has an inherent potential to contribute to our understanding of the past, in particular Roman temporary camps, their construction, use and role within the construction of the adjacent Antonine Wall. Although no longer surviving as an upstanding earthwork, there is good potential for buried remains from the fills of the ditch. Such deposits could include dateable organic remains and artefactual evidence relating to the occupation of the camp. Within the camp, the potential for the survival of occupation evidence is high and such remains help inform our understanding of the lives of Roman soldiers while in the field. Organic evidence from the fill of the ditches around the camp is capable of providing information about the contemporary environment at the time of the construction of the Antonine Wall. As a group, the 20 temporary camps associated with the Antonine Wall provide an important tool to aid our understanding of the construction of the frontier. The loss of the monument would affect our understanding of the construction and use of temporary camps by the Roman army and, in particular, the relationship between temporary encampments and the construction of the Antonine Wall.
References
Bibliography
The RCAHMS record the monument as NT08SW 10.00. The Falkirk Council SMR designation is not known.
References
Breeze D J, 2006, The Antonine Wall, John Donald: London.
Cook M, 2000,'Deer's Den, Kintore', Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 2000, 10-11.
Cook M, 2002, 'Forest Road, Kintore', Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 2001, 11.
Hanson, W S and Maxwell, G S 1986, Rome's North West Frontier, Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh.
Keppie, L J F 1999, 'Roman Britain in 1998. Sites explored, Scotland', Britannia 30, 329.
About Scheduled Monuments
Historic Environment Scotland is responsible for designating sites and places at the national level. These designations are Scheduled monuments, Listed buildings, Inventory of gardens and designed landscapes and Inventory of historic battlefields.
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Printed: 03/08/2025 06:39