The Roman fort near Cudmore Farm lies in north Devon, in the upland country south of the Exmoor fringe between the Taw and Torridge valleys. It is one of a series of small auxiliary or campaign forts associated with the Roman military advance into the South-West, most likely occupied during the conquest and consolidation phase of the mid- to later 1st century AD (c. AD 50s–70s), and probably held only briefly as the frontier shifted northwards.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The site forms part of the network of forts and marching camps strung across Devon — comparable to Bury Barton, North Tawton, Rainsbury and the recently identified examples at Calstock and elsewhere — that policed the territory of the Dumnonii and supported the legionary base at Exeter (Isca Dumnoniorum). Its location helps trace the still-imperfectly-understood Roman penetration of the South-West peninsula, in a region where permanent military occupation was short-lived.
Very little has been published on this specific site; it is known principally from aerial photography and cropmark/earthwork evidence showing a typical rectangular playing-card plan with rounded corners, characteristic of a Roman military enclosure. No substantive excavation results, dating evidence or internal layout have been recorded in the public record, and the identification rests largely on morphological grounds.
The Roman fort near Cudmore Farm lies in north Devon, in the upland country south of the Exmoor fringe between the Taw and Torridge valleys. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a fort site from the Roman period in Britain.
Roman fort 300m NE of Cudmore Farm 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 Tiverton (9.3 km), Wiveliscombe Auxiliary Fort (9.7 km), Cullompton Forts (14.4 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 Roman fort 300m NE of Cudmore Farm