Whitley Castle

Whitley Castle (Epiacum) is a large, unusually shaped Roman fort (Latin: castra) north-west of the town of Alston, Cumbria, England.

Unlike most Roman forts that have a "playing-card shape" (rectangular with rounded corners), Whitley Castle is lozenge-shaped to fit the site.

Numerous banks and ditches ring the stone ramparts, making it among the most complex defensive earthworks of any fort known in the Roman Empire.

Among finds at the fort are altars with inscriptions to Hercules by Legio VI Victrix (normally stationed at Eboracum [York]) and to Apollo by the 2nd Cohort of Nervians, the garrison of auxiliaries.

Other finds include a midden containing shoes; coins, fragments of Samian pottery, beads, nails, and a bronze handle shaped like a dolphin.

[4][8] Epiacum was in some ways a typical Roman fort: inside the wall were straight roads which crossed, a headquarters building (the Praetorium), the commandant's house, a set of barrack blocks for the cohort of auxiliary soldiers, and granaries to store food.

[4][8] These constitute the most complex defensive earthworks of any known Roman fort, with multiple banks and ditches outside the usual stone ramparts.

[4][8][12] Another altar is inscribed "DEO APOLLINI G...IVS ... ...COH II NER ..." ("To the god Apollo, Gaius Julius Marcius, [commander] of the 2nd Cohort of Nervians, [fulfilled his vow].").

[18][20] The geologist Thomas Sopwith surveyed the fort, describing it, its baths and the midden (waste heap) in 1833 as follows:[21] Still further north [of the multiple ditches] are the remains of the Hypocausta or baths — the supposed cemetery of the station — and, what is rather a variety in antiquarian researches, the perfect remains of a Roman middenstead, which, strange as it may appear, has furnished many loads of excellent manure to the neighbouring fields, and been hitherto the productive mine of several interesting curiosities.The fort was surveyed by R.G.

Collingwood and described by him in his Archaeology of Roman Britain, 1930, where he noted the fort's uniquely skewed shape and extraordinary set of defensive ramparts on the western, uphill side.

[18] A survey in 2007–8 by English Heritage[5] showed a large Roman civilian settlement or vicus to the north and west of the fort.

[24] In the absence of a full excavation, archaeologists have exploited the diggings of moles to uncover Roman artefacts by sifting earth thrown up by the animals in their molehills.

Whitley Castle (the Roman Epiacum ) near Alston, Cumbria . The fort is south of Hadrian's Wall , and may have been situated to control local lead mining . The multiple banks and ditches on the uphill side, and the fort's exceptional lozenge shape, can be seen in the photograph.
Multiple defensive ramparts on the north side of Epiacum
Seven banks and ditches (filled with rushes ) on the western, uphill side of the Roman fort
Illustration of an altar to Hercules found at Whitley Castle, from Thomas Sopwith , 1833. The altar is now in Bedford Museum . [ 10 ]
Plan of Whitley Castle by Thomas Sopwith , 1853. [ 16 ] The Victorian Enclosure walls shown within the Roman fort were largely removed by volunteers in 2018. [ 17 ]
Plan, made by R.G. Collingwood in 1930, shows the unique skewing of the playing-card shape of Roman forts, and the similarly extraordinary set of ramparts outside the fort's wall.