OSMap: LR58
Type: Roman Vexillation Fortress, 4 Marching Camps.
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NGRef: NO208179 OSMap: LR58 Type: Roman Vexillation Fortress, 4 Marching Camps. |
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The site of the Severan fortress at Carpow lies on a private estate overlooking the Tay Estuary, but a short word with the landowner and a quick flash of my University of Birmingham student card earned me the privilege of inspecting at leisure the northern ramparts. These proved to be massive, covered in Beech and several species of woodland flowers, and an ideal place to stop for lunch. Aside from these formidable natural defences, nothing else remains of this third-century supply base.
 The Northern Defences - East |
 The Northern Defences - West |
The identification of the the Carpow vexillation fortress with the name Horrea Classis is tentative to say the least. The basis for this assumption is the Poreo Classis entry in the Ravenna Cosmology (R&C#221). This name is listed between the unknown towns Leviodanum and Levioxava, and from their position in the text would all appear to be positioned somewhere around the Fife/Tayside area of Scotland.
"Below these¹ toward the west are the Venicones, whose town is Orrea 24*00 58°45." (Claudius Ptolemaeus' Geography)
 The Northern Rampart - Looking West |
 The Northern Rampart - Looking East |
There appears to be supporting evidence in Ptolemy's Geography of the second century, which places the Venicones tribe in the Fife and Tayside region of Scotland, and assigns to them a single town named Orrea. This is very likely a copyist's mistake, a mis-spelling of the word Horrea 'granary, storehouse'.
| IMP ET D N M AVR ANTONINVS PIVS FELIX ... ... ... LEG II AVG ... |
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(RIB 2213.a; AD212-217) |
To date, the sole inscription on stone recovered from the Carpow area is a dedicatory inscription by the Second Augustan Legion addressed to the divine Emperor Caracalla, which has been dated to the second decade of the third century. This fragmentary inscription is shown above.
The fortress was observed on aerial photographs taken during the 1940's and was estimated at that time to have axial dimensions of about 940 ft. by 570 ft (c.287 x 174 m), with the major axis aligned north-south; this would give an area of approximately 12¼ acres (c.5 ha).
NO208179 - The foundations of an Iron-Age 'ring-groove-house' 38ft (c.11.6m) internal diameter with walls 28in (71cm) wide were uncovered during trial-trenching north of the principia in 1969. At the same time, the south gate (porta principalis dextra) was partly excavated and found to be constructed of sandstone on a foundation of heavy cobbles. The twin gateway here was not equipped with any guard rooms. Drainage channels leading beneath each doorway still contained the iron fastenings of a wooden water pipe used to channel ground water away from the camp. Several coins were found in the demolition layer of the west channel; denarii of Faustina, Lucilla, Severus and Caracalla.
NO208179 - A number of excavations were conducted on this site in 1970:
There are a number of temporary marching camps in the neighbourhood; two nearby at Carpow (NO2017) south of the fort, one a little way to the west at Carey in Tayside (NO1716) and another on the opposite side of the Tay Estuary at Saint Madoes also in Tayside (NO2019). There are in addition three more marching camps in Fife to the south and east of the fort, at Auchtermuchty (NO2411), Edenwood (NO3511) and Bonnytown (NO5412).
