Coria

Coria stands on the River Tyne two and a half miles south of Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland. The Romans chose this junction of Dere Street and the Stanegate road because it controlled a crossing of the Tyne. The site began as a turf fort around AD 84, rebuilt several times before stone barracks and granaries appeared. A cavalry unit called the Ala Gallorum Petriana once garrisoned the fort. Excavations from 1907 to 1914 uncovered the complex sequence of forts beneath later buildings. The fort’s history includes a metal hoard left when troops pulled back to the Wall about AD 122–138. After AD 163 the army left and the town changed into a market centre for lead, iron and coal. A large courtyard may have been intended as a forum or supply depot for the Second and Sixth Legions. An elaborate house of the 3rd–4th century suggests an imperial official once lived here. The Corbridge Hoard, found on the site, shows the wealth once stored here. Visitors walk past exposed stone foundations of barracks, granaries and workshops. The site museum displays finds including the tombstone of Flavinus, a standard-bearer who served seven years before dying at 25. The cavalryman is carved riding down a barbarian, a reminder of the Ala Petriana stationed here. Beyond the ruins the modern village of Corbridge lines the riverbank, linking past and present.