Wilderness Plantation was the site of a Roman fortlet on the Antonine Wall in

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 ...

. The line of the Antonine Wall runs roughly parallel between the

River Kelvin The River Kelvin (Scottish Gaelic: ''Abhainn Cheilbhinn'') is a tributary of the River Clyde in northern and northeastern Glasgow, Scotland. It rises on the moor south east of the village of Banton, east of Kilsyth. At almost long, it init ...

to the north and the

Forth and Clyde Canal The Forth and Clyde Canal is a canal opened in 1790, crossing central Scotland; it provided a route for the seagoing vessels of the day between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde at the narrowest part of the Scottish Lowlands. This allowe ...

to the south. The site, like several others along the wall and beyond, was found by aerial photography, this discovery being reported in October 1965. Following this Wilkes excavated in that year and the following one. He approved of the term "interval fortlet" to describe this and other fortlets like Duntocher and Glasgow Bridge. The neighbouring forts to this fortlet are

Balmuildy Balmuildy is the site of a Roman fort on the Antonine Wall in Scotland. It is one of only two forts on the Antonine Wall to have been found with stone ramparts; the other is Castlecary. A digital reconstruction of the fort has been created. L ...

in the west and Cadder in the east. Hadrian dupondius

No coinage has been recovered nor are there any inscriptions from the fortlet although a single coin was picked up at Wilderness West. Many Roman forts along the wall held garrisons of around 500 men. Larger forts like

Castlecary Castlecary () is a small historic village in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, directly adjacent to the border with Falkirk. It has long been associated with infrastructure, being adjacent to a bridged river, a Roman fort and roads, a nationwide can ...

and Birrens had a nominal cohort of 1000 men but probably sheltered women and children as well although the troops were not allowed to marry. There is likely too to have been large communities of civilians around the site.

References

{{coord, 55.9215, -4.2452, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Forts of the Antonine Wall