Ardoch (Alauna) is one of the best-preserved Roman military complexes in Britain, comprising a fort with exceptionally well-defined multiple ditches alongside a series of overlapping marching camps and a small signal/watch installation. The site was occupied intermittently from the Flavian period (c. AD 80s under Agricola) through the Antonine reoccupation of Scotland (c. AD 140s–160s), forming part of the Gask Ridge frontier system controlling the approaches between Strathallan and Strathearn.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Ardoch served as a key garrison post on the road running north from Camelon towards Bertha, anchoring the Gask system — arguably the earliest land frontier of the Roman Empire — and later supporting Antonine operations beyond the Wall. A tombstone of Ammonius, a soldier of the Cohors I Hispanorum, confirms an auxiliary cohort garrison and is one of the few epigraphic survivals from Roman Scotland.
The fort's earthworks remain strikingly visible, with up to five ditches surviving on the north side; antiquarian and 20th-century investigations (notably Christison 1898 and later work) identified two main occupation phases, Flavian and Antonine, with reduction in fort size during the latter. Aerial photography and survey have mapped at least six overlapping marching camps adjacent to the fort, indicating its repeated use as a campaign assembly point
Ardoch (Alauna) is one of the best-preserved Roman military complexes in Britain, comprising a fort with exceptionally well-defined multiple ditches alongside a series of overlapping marching camps and a small signal/watch installation. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a fort site from the Roman period in Britain.
Alauna is classified as a Roman fort — a military site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including Kaims Castle (3.7 km), Strageath (10 km), Bannatia? (12.9 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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