Longovicium was an auxiliary fort on Dere Street, the main Roman road running north from Eboracum (York) towards Hadrian's Wall, occupying a hilltop position roughly 11 km southwest of present-day Durham. It was established around AD 150 under Antoninus Pius and remained in use into the late 4th century, covering approximately 2.5 hectares — a standard-sized fort designed to hold a part-mounted auxiliary unit of around 500 men.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The fort guarded a strategic stretch of Dere Street between the supply base at Vinovia (Binchester) and Concangis (Chester-le-Street), and inscriptions record successive garrisons including the Cohors I Lingonum and the Vardulli. It is also notable for evidence of substantial industrial activity, particularly lead and iron working, suggesting a logistical as well as purely military role.
The fort's earthwork ramparts are unusually well preserved as upstanding remains, and limited excavations in the 19th and 20th centuries identified the principia, bath-house, and an extramural vicus, along with altars dedicated to Garmangabis (a Germanic goddess) and others to Jupiter and Silvanus. Geophysical survey in the 2000s has clarified the layout of the vicus and an associated aqueduct system, though large-scale modern excavation of the interior remains limited.
Longovicium was an auxiliary fort on Dere Street, the main Roman road running north from Eboracum (York) towards Hadrian's Wall, occupying a hilltop position roughly 11 km southwest of present-day Durham. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a fort site from the Roman period in Britain.
Longovicium 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 Untitled (0 km), Lanchester Roman fort (Longovicium) (0.5 km), Remains of Roman aqueduct (1.4 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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