Bar Hill was a Roman auxiliary fort on the Antonine Wall in central Scotland, occupied during the mid-2nd century AD (c. AD 142–c. 165), making it the highest-sited fort on the Wall at around 150 m elevation. Unusually, it stands detached from the Wall rampart rather than being attached to it, and covered roughly 1.4 hectares — sufficient for a part-mounted (cohors equitata) auxiliary unit. Garrisons attested by inscriptions include the cohors I Hamiorum (Syrian archers) and later the cohors I Baetasiorum.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
As a Wall fort it controlled a key stretch of the Antonine frontier and the approaches across the Kelvin valley, while its Hamian archer garrison is one of the few documented postings of this specialist eastern unit outside Carvoran on Hadrian's Wall. It thus illustrates both the cosmopolitan character of the auxiliary forces deployed on Scotland's short-lived northern frontier and the deliberate spacing of forts roughly two miles apart along the Wall.
The fort was extensively excavated by Macdonald and Park in 1902–05, revealing a stone-built principia with a notably deep well (which yielded a remarkable assemblage of altars, sculptured stones, columns and timber thrown in at abandonment), a bath-house outside the defences, granaries, and a courty
Bar Hill was a Roman auxiliary fort on the Antonine Wall in central Scotland, occupied during the mid-2nd century AD (c. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a fort site from the Roman period in Britain.
Bar Hill Roman Fort 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 Bar Hill Fort Bathhouse (0 km), Croy Hill (2.6 km), Auchendavy (3.2 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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