Day six

Next morning, we headed northwest of Perth. We stopped on a quiet country road just south of a very narrow gorge leading into the Grampian Mountains. A hike across the hilly, bracken-covered terrain brought us to a signal station. The clean, clean morning air of the Scottish mountains was invigorating. For some reason, the bracken was burnt off around the signal station area ... which archaeologists more or less define as a circular rampart with four post-holes. To the north, the station offered a view down into a steep gorge called the Sma' Glen. Looking back across landscape, southeast, is the terrace where the Roman fort at Fendoch (now not visible) was excavated in the late 1930's. This so-called "glen-blocking fort" is associated in time with the occupation of the huge legionary fortress at Inchtuthil, some 10 miles or so to the northeast which blocked movement along the River Tay.

Traveling by bus eastward, we passed through the charming town of Dunkeld on the River Tay. Downstream of Dunkeld is the site of one of the most spectacular Roman military installations in Scotland, the Flavian legionary fortress at Inchtuthil. Covering 54 acres, with stone-faced rampart and a sizeable bath-house (never finished), it was built sometime in the 80's AD and then purposely demolished by the Romans when they moved back south. Built for XX Valeria Victrix (subsequently based in Chester), with an estimated 14 million man-hours of work, it represents the furthest northward reach ofthe system of Roman legionary fortresses.

The site of the fortress lies on private property so our tour bus stopped at the junction of the A984 road and a dirt road. We walked south to the Tay River (a steep bluff lies on east side of fortress site) and then looped around west past a modern farmhouse to a large field on the plateau where the fortress was built. A mound complex (tumulus) in the south-east corner of the plateau represents Celtic use of the area. We followed fence-lines along shallow ditches and mounds, all that remains of mighty defenses. A herd of young cattle took keen interest in our tour group, whether from spite or from a interest in whether we might have an apple or two for them, hard to tell. In beautiful sunny conditions, and a flat walking area for once, there was time to reflect on over 1900 years of time passing since the vale was filled with soldiers, craftsmen and slaves. Huge temporary work camps were located outside the fortress to the west. Farther north are stonequarries used for the fortress.

We walked back to the bus (which had made a resupply trip to Perth in the mean time) and continued along country roads with the occasional pheasant flashing across the road, past the nearby Meikleour Beech Hedge, a famous stand of 250 year old trees that stand like a ten story building along the west side of the A93 roadway.

Our next stop was the Severan marching camp of Kirkbuddo, first recorded by General Roy in the 18th century. Just the southwest corner of the 63 acre fortress crosses the modern road. Our bus stopped at the roadside, and we walked through a plantation of trees to thenorthwest to see a reasonably well preserved section of rampart and ditch.

Overgrown with forest, the Kirkbuddo location is a clear example of change in the landscape and how ditching has been inadvertently preserved from the plough. There was a trace of a titulus (protectivemound in front of a camp gate).

A quick though significant stop in our migration northeast on Day Six was at the archetypic site location for the "Stracathro" type of Roman camp. Recorded by General Roy, virtually nothing can be seen of the fort because of plowing and a church yard placed on the location (just west of the junction of the A90 highway and the River North Esk). Our bus had to maneuver carefully in the modest church parking lot. Perhaps more significant is the hillside to the north of Stracathro which some authors claim is the site of the Battle of Mons Graupius, the dramatic hillside battle between the Caledonians and the Flavian auxiliaries under Agricola.

A series of Flavian Roman marching camps extends through northeast Scotland north of the Firth of Tay, trending parallel to the coast, roughly five to twenty-five miles inland from the North Sea. Northwest of the coastal town of Stonehaven, is the 93 acre Raedykes site with a very unusual shape. The tour group walked up a modern dirt road past a farm house and then along rampart ditch for the huge marching camp. Sunny, mild weather with a bit of a breeze and lots of sheep was matched with a spectacular view eastwards out to North Sea. The marching camp has an unusual zigzag in its north rampart that doesn't seem to have any relation to the terrain or any visible obstacles. It's another sign of how little we know of the details of Roman camp design ... the Vindolanda tablets confirm that we have only a tiny fraction of the written material used to run an empire. Perhaps there were religious reasons for the rampart detour or some administrative rationale. We can only guess, and poorly.

The 107 acre marching camp next in line north of Raedykes is called Normandykes. Located on the brow of a low hill just north of the Dee River, Normandykes is lost under under a plantation of trees however one dramatic rampart ditch on the north side of the fort remains in reasonable condition. Modern Aberdeen lies northeast of the site and the tour spent the night on the outskirts of the city at a wonderful hotel and recreation complex set on a large estate.