Pennymuir Roman Camps

View across Camp A at Pennymuir

The Pennymuir Roman Camps are to be found southeast of Jedburgh in southern Roxburghshire, in the Cheviot Hills close to the edge of Northumberland. The site, alongside the course of the Roman road known as Dere Street, consists of the remains of four Roman temporary camps, a linear earthwork and an area of rig. The site is also sometimes referred to as the Towford camps.

Overview

• Location map: 55°25’5"N, 2°23’18"W
• Streetmap: NT755138

The camps at Pennymuir lie on rough moorland in the Cheviot Hills beside Dere Street, a short distance north of Tow Ford where the Roman road crossed the Kale Water. Camps A and B are considered amongst the best preserved Roman camps north of Hadrian's Wall. These two were first recorded in 1774 by William Roy.

The Pennymuir camps lie about four and a half miles north-west of the Roman camps and fortlets at Chew Green just across in Northumberland and are located in the vicinity of Woden Law hillfort.

Camp A

Camp A (NT754139) is the largest camp in the group. It lies close to the west side of Dere Street on a platform of moderately even ground. Its south end lies on the edge of a small, dry gully. It is approximately rectangular in shape, and measures 570 yards from north to south by 375 yards east to west and encloses almost 45 acres. Entrance gaps are visible on all four sides, with two visible on the west side. The ramparts of the camp measure up to 15 feet wide and 4 feet high, with the ditch some 15 feet wide and up to 4 feet deep in places.

Camp B

Camp B (NT756138) lies within the southeast portion of camp A, and utilises part of the east and south defences of camp A. It is the later of the two camps. It has a rectangular shape, and measures 300 yards from north to south by 140 yards east to west and encloses almost ten acres. Entrance gaps are visible on the west (two), north and east sides. The northward gate on the west side had been narrowed at a later date, which may be the result of a later re-occupation of the camp.

Camp C

Camp C (NT756144) is situated to the north-east of camps A and B on the east side of Dere Street and astride the modern road from Pennymuir to Hownam. It has been partially obliterated by drainage and a plantation. The camp is a parallelogram in shape, and measures 280 metres from northwest to southeast by 185 metres, and encloses 5.1 hectares. The only visible part is the west side, south of the Pennymuir road, where it is traceable for 50 metres as a slight turf bank, some 6 feet wide and nine inches high.

Camp D

A probable fourth camp (NT757139) has been found on air photographs on the east side of Dere Street opposite camp A. Only part of the camp has been traced, measuring 210 yards from north to south by at least 130 yards, suggesting that it enclosed at least five and half acres. The north and east sides (including the northeast corner) are traceable as a low spread turf bank 16 feet wide and nine inches high. The south and west sides have been totally obliterated by former cultivation and by recent drainage ditches.

Later features

The remains of a later farmstead are situated immediately to the east of the road between the camps, and comprises at least two buildings and five enclosures. Traces of rig and furrow cultivation lie within the enclosures.

There is also a linear earthwork which can been seen within camp A running north from about 20 yards northeast of the south-west corner of the camp. It probably functioned as a later boundary.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Pennymuir)

• CANMORE/RCAHMS record of Pennymuir, Camp A; Dere Street; Temporary Camp (Roman)
• Pennymuir Camp C
• SCRAN image: Temporary camps at Pennymuir, Scottish Borders
• Roman Heritage Way: Byrness to Crailinghall