Vindobala

Vindobala was a Roman fort beside the hamlet of Rudchester in Northumberland. It stood on Hadrian’s Wall, about seven and a half miles east of Halton Chesters and eleven kilometres west of Benwell. The fort guarded the March Burn valley to the west and overlooked the Rudchester Burn to the east. Its oblong shape measured 157 metres north to south and 117 metres east to west, covering roughly 4.5 acres. Four main gates with double portals and two smaller single gates gave access to roads and the Wall. Corner and gateway towers once stood along the defences. The fort was rebuilt after a fire in the late 2nd or early 3rd century. By the last quarter of the 3rd century it fell out of use, but was reoccupied around 370 AD until the end of Roman rule. A vicus grew up south-west of the fort, and a stone cistern on a nearby hill was called the Giant’s Grave. Excavations in 1924 and 1962 uncovered gateways, a granary, headquarters and a hypocaust beneath the commandant’s house. A life-size statue of Hercules found in 1760 now stands in Newcastle’s Great North Museum. Today only grassy mounds mark the west and south ramparts beside the Military Road. A temple to Mithras once stood south-east of the fort, where five altars were dug up in 1844. The curtain wall’s foundations here include a unique moulded plinth, perhaps once bearing an inscription. The Vallum runs about 220 metres south of the site, and the remains of timber-framed buildings from the late Roman period survive beneath the turf.