Blakehope is a Roman auxiliary fort and adjacent temporary camp situated on Dere Street in Redesdale, Northumberland, between High Rochester (Bremenium) to the north and Risingham (Habitancum) to the south. The fort is generally dated to the Flavian or Trajanic period (later 1st to early 2nd century AD), serving as one of the intermediate garrison posts along the road north into Scotland before the consolidation of the frontier on Hadrian's Wall.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Its role was primarily logistical and tactical — controlling movement along Dere Street through the difficult upland terrain of Redesdale and providing a marching-distance staging post between the larger forts. The associated temporary camp suggests it also functioned at times as a campaign assembly point during operations into southern Scotland.
The site is known mainly from aerial photography and earthwork survey, which reveal the playing-card outline of the fort and traces of the temporary camp nearby; no major modern excavation has been published, and little is known of its internal buildings, garrison unit, or detailed occupation sequence.
Blakehope is a Roman auxiliary fort and adjacent temporary camp situated on Dere Street in Redesdale, Northumberland, between High Rochester (Bremenium) to the north and Risingham (Habitancum) to the south. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a fort site from the Roman period in Britain.
Blakehope Roman fort and Roman temporary camp 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 Dargues (0.7 km), Romano-British farmstead 350m south of Rattenraw Farm (0.8 km), Romano-British farmstead, 550m south-east of Shittleheugh (1.2 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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Research the area around Blakehope Roman fort and Roman temporary camp