The Pennymuir Roman camps are situated southeast of

Jedburgh Jedburgh (; gd, Deadard; sco, Jeddart or ) is a town and former royal burgh in the Scottish Borders and the traditional county town of the historic county of Roxburghshire, the name of which was randomly chosen for Operation Jedburgh in s ...

in the Scottish Borders area of

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

, near the

Anglo-Scottish border The Anglo-Scottish border () is a border separating Scotland and England which runs for between Marshall Meadows Bay on the east coast and the Solway Firth in the west. The surrounding area is sometimes referred to as "the Borderlands". The ...

, in the former Roxburghshire. The site, alongside the course of the Roman road known as

Dere Street Dere Street or Deere Street is a modern designation of a Roman road which ran north from Eboracum (York), crossing the Stanegate at Corbridge (Hadrian's Wall was crossed at the Portgate, just to the north) and continuing beyond into what is n ...

, consists of the remains of four Roman temporary camps, a linear earthwork and an area of rig. The site is also sometimes referred to as the Towford camps.

Overview

The camps at Pennymuir lie on rough moorland in the

Cheviot Hills The Cheviot Hills (), or sometimes The Cheviots, are a range of uplands straddling the Anglo-Scottish border between Northumberland and the Scottish Borders. The English section is within the Northumberland National Park. The range includes T ...

beside

, a short distance north of Tow Ford where the Roman road crossed the

Kale Water The Kale Water is a long tributary of the River Teviot in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland. Its feeder burns in the Cheviot Hills are the Long Burn, Hawkwillow Burn and the Grindstone Burn, east of Leithope Forest near the Anglo-Scottish ...

.Pennymuir Towford; Dere Street

RCAHMS The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) was an executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government that was "sponsored" inanced and with oversightthrough Historic Scotland, an executive ...

, accessed 8 May 2014 Camps A and B are considered amongst the best preserved Roman camps in Scotland.Pennymuir Towford; Pennymuir, Camp A; Dere Street

, accessed 8 May 2014 These two were first recorded in 1774 by

William Roy Major-General William Roy (4 May 17261 July 1790) was a Scottish military engineer, surveyor, and antiquarian. He was an innovator who applied new scientific discoveries and newly emerging technologies to the accurate geodetic mapping of ...

. The Pennymuir camps lie about 7 kilometres northwest of the Roman camps and fortlets at Chew Green on the English side of the

and are located in the vicinity of Woden Law hillfort.Chew Green
Pastscape, accessed 8 May 2014Woden Law
The Megalithic Portal, accessed 10 April 2016

Camp A

Camp A () is the largest camp in the group. It lies close to the west side of Dere Street on a platform of moderately even ground. Its south end lies on the edge of a small, dry gully. It is approximately rectangular in shape, and measures 520 metres from north to south by 343 metres east to west and encloses almost 18 hectares. Entrance gaps are visible on all four sides, with two visible on the west side. The ramparts of the camp measure up to 4.6 metres wide and 1.2 metres high, with the ditch some 4.6 metres wide and up to 1.2 metres deep in places.

Camp B

Camp B () lies within the southeast portion of camp A, and utilises part of the east and south defences of camp A.Towford; Pennymuir, Camp B; Dere Street

, accessed 8 May 2014 It is the later of the two camps. It has a rectangular shape, and measures 300 metres from north to south by 130 metres east to west and encloses almost 4 hectares. Entrance gaps are visible on the west (two), north and east sides. The northward gate on the west side had been narrowed at a later date, which may be the result of a later re-occupation of the camp.

Camp C

Camp C () is situated to the north-east of camps A and B on the east side of Dere Street and astride the modern road from Pennymuir to

Hownam Hownam or HounamHounam
National Library of Scotland is a small village and

.Towford; Pennymuir, Camp C; Dere Street

, accessed 8 May 2014 It has been partially obliterated by drainage and a plantation. The camp is a parallelogram in shape, and measures 280 metres from northwest to southeast by 185 metres, and encloses 5.1 hectares. The only visible part is the west side, south of the Pennymuir road, where it is traceable for 50 metres as a slight turf bank, some 2 metres wide and 20 centimetres high.

Camp D

A probable fourth camp () has been found on air photographs on the east side of Dere Street opposite camp A.Towford; Pennymuir, Camp D; Dere Street

, accessed 8 May 2014 Only part of the camp has been traced, measuring 192 metres from north to south by at least 120 metres, suggesting that it enclosed at least 2.3 hectares. The north and east sides (including the northeast corner) are traceable as a low spread turf bank 5 metres wide and 20 centimetres high. The south and west sides have been obliterated by former cultivation and by recent drainage ditches.

Later features

The remains of a later farmstead are situated immediately to the east of the road between the camps, and comprises at least two buildings and five enclosures.Pennymuir: enclosures, farmstead

, accessed 8 May 2014 Traces of

rig and furrow Rig may refer to: Objects and structures * Rig (fishing), an arrangement of items used for fishing * Drilling rig, a structure housing equipment used to drill or extract oil from underground * Rig (stage lighting) * rig, a horse-drawn carriage ...

cultivation lie within the enclosures.Pennymuir: Rig and furrow

, accessed 8 May 2014 There is also a linear earthwork which can be seen within camp A running north from about 20 metres northeast of the southwest corner of the camp.Pennymuir: Linear earthwork

, accessed 8 May 2014 It probably functioned as a later boundary.

References

External links

{{Commons category, Pennymuir
CANMORE/RCAHMS record of Pennymuir, Camp A; Dere Street; Temporary Camp (Roman)Pennymuir Camp CSCRAN image: Temporary camps at Pennymuir, Scottish Borders
Scottish Borders Roman fortified camps in Scotland Scheduled monuments in Scotland