Barcombe Hill Roman Quarry comprises two worked stone faces on the southwestern flank of Barcombe Hill, the prominent ridge immediately southeast of Vindolanda (Chesterholm) on the Stanegate. The quarries exploited the local Carboniferous sandstone for building stone, almost certainly to supply the successive forts and vicus at Vindolanda, and were probably worked intermittently from the late 1st through the 3rd century, during the major phases of construction and rebuilding at the nearby garrison.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The site illustrates the typical pattern along the Stanegate–Hadrian's Wall corridor whereby auxiliary garrisons drew building stone from the nearest available outcrops, minimising transport costs. Its particular note lies in RIB 3373, a rock-cut inscription found here that records quarrying activity and links the workings directly to military stoneworking parties.
Beyond the inscription RIB 3373 and the visible quarry faces themselves — with associated tool marks and spoil — no systematic excavation has been published, and the site is known principally from field survey. Barcombe Hill also carries a Roman signal tower on its summit, providing a broader Roman-period context for activity on the hill, though the quarries are not directly dated by stratified finds.
Barcombe Hill Roman Quarry comprises two worked stone faces on the southwestern flank of Barcombe Hill, the prominent ridge immediately southeast of Vindolanda (Chesterholm) on the Stanegate. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a quarry site from the Roman period in Britain.
Barcombe Hill Roman Quarry is classified as a Roman quarry — a industrial 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 Military Bath House at Vindolanda (0.5 km), Vindolanda (0.6 km), Vindolanda (Chesterholm) Roman forts, civil settlement and cemeteries, adjacent length of the Stanegate Roman road and two milestones (0.8 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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