Description
This monument is a section of the Antonine Wall which runs from Rough Castle to Lime Road, Tamfourhill. It also includes the remains of a multi-period field system.
This proposal forms part of a programme which is intended to update the scheduling of the Antonine Wall, and adjusts the protected area along this part of the line of the Wall. It replaces two existing scheduled areas with a single new one.
The Antonine Wall at this location is exceptionally well-preserved, and although presently overgrown with trees and scrub, the rampart, ditch and outer mound are clearly visible, apart from a few small areas where they have been obscured or removed by later industrial activity. There are two expansions along this stretch of rampart, one about 40m E of the track (a former railway line) which cuts through the Antonine Wall, and another about 140m W of where the Wall is cut by Lime Road. These are both approximately 8m square and just over 1m high. Expansions are turf platforms on a stone base which were built against the southern side of the Antonine Wall rampart, and which appear to occur in pairs close to forts. There is a second pair to the W of Rough Castle. Expansions are thought to have been used for watchtowers or as signalling posts.
The remains of a system of turf banks and enclosures which lie to the S and SW of Rough Castle fort are included in this scheduling. Small-scale archaeological excavation in the early 1980s indicated that these features represent the remains of several field systems of different periods. The find of an arrowhead of Neolithic type, and a Bronze Age radiocarbon date from charcoal under the earliest phase of banking indicate prehistoric activity on the site, but it was not possible to date all the upstanding features with any certainty. Similarities in layout with other Roman period field systems discovered near the forts at Croy Hill, Carriden and Cramond, indicate that the small sub-rectangular enclosures may have been fields cultivated during the occupation of the fort at Rough Castle.
The area to be scheduled includes the Antonine Wall rampart, berm, ditch and upcast mound, the Military Way, the field system and an area to the N and S where traces of activities associated with the construction and use of the monument may survive, as shown in red on the accompanying map extract. The W edge of the scheduled area is defined by a field boundary and by the Rowan Tree Burn immediately E & S of the fort at Rough Castle. The S boundary is extended to the track bordering the main Edinburgh-Glasgow railway line to cover the field system, but then follows the edge of the recently restored open cast workings until it reaches the line of a former railway which cuts the Antonine Wall. From here eastwards the southern edge of the scheduled area lies 20m beyond the line of the Military Way until it reaches the B816 Bonnyhill Road which then forms the S boundary as far as Lime Road. W of Lime Road the N boundary of the scheduled area is defined by the S edge of an old track, and further W by existing field boundaries.