Bothwellhaugh Roman Fort is a site now located within Strathclyde Country Park in North Lanarkshire,

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...

. It is east of where the South Calder Water flows into

Strathclyde Loch Strathclyde ( in Gaelic, meaning "strath (valley) of the River Clyde") was one of nine former local government regions of Scotland created in 1975 by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 and abolished in 1996 by the Local Government etc. ...

. The fort is a scheduled monument.

Location

Before the flooding of

Bothwellhaugh Bothwellhaugh was a Scottish coal mining village housing Hamilton Palace Colliery workers and their families. Locals referred to the village as The Pailis. It was located near to the towns of Motherwell, Bellshill and Hamilton in Lanarkshi ...

village to create the loch, the site overlooked the point where the Roman road bridged the South Calder Water near its confluence with the River Clyde. The Roman Road was known as Watling Street; it is shown on old maps from before the diversion of the Clyde and before the rediscovery of the fort. In terms of large towns the fort is west of Motherwell, to which it is closest, north of Hamilton, and south of

Bellshill Bellshill (pronounced "Bells hill") is a town in North Lanarkshire in Scotland, southeast of Glasgow city centre and west of Edinburgh. Other nearby localities are Motherwell to the south, Hamilton to the southwest, Viewpark to the w ...

Discovery

Mention of a Roman structure is made in the Dalziel section of the

Old Statistical Account The ''Statistical Accounts of Scotland'' are a series of documentary publications, related in subject matter though published at different times, covering life in Scotland in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The ''Old (or First) Statistical Ac ...

. The fort was rediscovered by J. M. Davidson in 1925. The fort was built in a scalene right quadrilateral pattern and was large enough to house both troops and cavalry. The fort is likely to have been linked by roads to sites on the Antonine Wall and south at Castledykes but exactly how they were connected is a matter of ongoing study.

Roman bath house Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...

was subsequently found between the fort and medieval bridge anachronistically named 'Roman Bridge'. The bath house, which was found in November 1973 beneath a pond, was moved to higher ground in 1980 and is now open to the public. The complete excavation was carried out in 1975-76 under the direction of Lawrence Keppie. The bath house was made up of: a Vestibule, a Frigidarium (cold room with cold plunge bath), a first and second Tepidarium (warm rooms), a Caldarium (hot room with nearby hot bath), and a Praefurnium (furnace room). Perhaps around 20 soldiers at a time could use the bath house. Hundreds of artifacts were taken from the excavations on the site to the Hunterian Museum at

Glasgow University , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

. These include a Roman drain cover slab, a hunt cup, and tile with a paw print. Pottery from the site has established an Antonine occupation but how the site relates to the

Antonine Wall The Antonine Wall, known to the Romans as ''Vallum Antonini'', was a turf fortification on stone foundations, built by the Romans across what is now the Central Belt of Scotland, between the Firth of Clyde and the Firth of Forth. Built some ...

remains unclear. The full catalog of the finds is available along with many sketches. The distance from the thermae (baths) to the fort suggests there are other, as yet undiscovered structures.

References

External links

{{Commons category-inline, Bothwellhaugh Roman Fort Roman auxiliary forts in Scotland Scheduled monuments in Scotland History of North Lanarkshire Buildings and structures in Motherwell

Location

Discovery

See also

References

External links