Wednesday Walk around the remains of a Roman Fort at Crammond

I've been getting more interested in Roman history in Scotland of late, and went to see the remains of a Roman Fort in Crammond on the edge of Edinburgh.

The remains are actually very scant these days, and its mostly a set of outlines showing where the main buildings were, with a few small wall remnants. However, it is still pretty impressive to see.

The information board above which is at the site gives a rough idea of the fort and its size, and it actually covered a fairly sizeable area considering this dated back to around 200 AD or so (over 1800 years ago !).

The remains have all been mostly much built over, etc like above you can see the outlines of where these buildings once stood, over which is now Crammond Kirk (Church).

I found it very interesting wandering around checking out the buildings that would have been here, and was quite surprised at the extent they covered over. They extended right down to the main Crammond car park, where they also found the remains of a Roman bath house - although you cant see anything of it these days. I think they covered it back over to protect the ruins.

Crammond is a quite a nice part of Edinburgh, and I'd go as far to say that it feels like its own village out on the edge. It has loads of walks, and I quite enjoyed exploring this part - and go there regularly.

The Fort was quite important because it lay at the Eastern end of the Antonine wall, which stretched right across Scotland and was used by the Romans to try and control/subdue this part of the Northern Roman Empire. I wrote more about the wall in another post recently here

The location also gave them fairly good sheltered access to the North Sea for shipping which was a fairly major method of transport around the British Isles at the time.

While wandering the site I also found another old building which is quite large but very hidden (pic above). Its not Roman, but is pretty close to the site of the old Roman bathhouse. I'm not at all sure what it was, and it has a mini-swamp/bog going on inside it these days ! I also saw a couple of deer right beside it, but wasnt quick enough to catch a pic of them.

The wild garlic was also out in full bloom in this area too (I've been seeing a lot of it on this side of Edinburgh of late).

I really did enjoy getting out to explore the ruins, and I have to say its quite cool to think that there is a substantial 1800 year old Roman Fort around 3 miles from where I live !

That wraps up my wed walk post for this week - all the best from Scotland !!!

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