Barry : Roman remains

It’s only taken me 3½ years of living in Wales to discover that the nearby town of Barry has Roman remains – how did I miss that? Okay, they’re not particularly spectacular remains – though the sea views are pretty spectacular – and they’ve been hemmed in on three sides by modern housing, but any construction that endures for around 1700 years is amazing in my book, and that’s certainly a lot longer than the modern buildings around it will last.

When the Romans invaded Britain in AD43, south-east Wales was the land of the Silures, a fierce warrior tribe that managed to resist Roman domination until around AD75. The Vale of Glamorgan, on the edge of which sits the town of Barry, was rich agricultural land so it’s no surprise the area attracted the Romans. A signboard at the Barry site explains the local context:

The Vale of Glamorgan seems to have been a moderately prosperous area. The route of one of the major Roman roads, between the forts at Cardiff and Loughor, is still preserved in the line of the modern A48 running through Cowbridge, which seems to have been a large village or small town replacing some sort of military installation in the early second century. The Vale itself seems to have been mainly agricultural and it is quite likely that many of the present field systems go back to Roman times. A large number of farmsteads, all Romanised to a greater or lesser degree, are known in the Barry area. In addition villas are known at Llandough, Llantwit Major and Ely.

Lacking any historical records about the Barry building, archaeologists have estimated, from coins found at the site, that it probably dates from the late third or early fourth century, and it also seems likely that the building’s construction was never finished. These details are from another of the signboards:

When it was excavated it was found that some of the walls had collapsed directly over the builders’ levels, suggesting that building work had been abandoned before it was completed.
No expense seems to have been spared on materials, as it had walls in the local Lias limestone and a roof of ceramic tiles, rather than the sandstone slates which were commonly used in the Vale. The sides of the main doorways were made with alternating courses of limestone and tile and the thresholds seem also to have been of tile. In addition chips of fine white limestone, possibly from the Bath area, were found during excavation, suggesting that the building may have been embellished with carved stone.

Although only the lower parts of the walls and their foundations survive, the plan of the building is clear. It has 21 rooms (if you count the two corridors), all grouped around a large central courtyard, and there seem to have been two entrances, one through room O (which currently remains only as a cellar – there would have been a room above it), the other through room G (see plan below – apologies for the blurry nature of this: the signboards at the site are not in good repair).

The reconstruction drawing (also taken from a signboard) is, of course, very speculative, partly because construction was not complete and also because so little of what was finished has survived. As there is no evidence of the under-floor heating systems often found in domestic Roman buildings of this size, it is unlikely to have been a villa. Rather, its close proximity to the sea and to Barry’s harbour probably mean the building would have had some naval or trading function. The Cardiff Museum website speculates that ‘it might have been a mansio or an inn for government officials, but it could have been part of a more intricate system of defence, possibly involving other fortifications at Neath and Loughor’.    

If you’re in the area, this site is definitely worth a visit, and you can then speculate for yourself as to its original purpose … and enjoy the magnificent views over the Bristol Channel!

Roman Wales: Caerleon

Suggest a visit to Roman ruins and, before you can say Carpe diem, my shoes and jacket will be on, my camera in my backpack, and I’ll be waiting at the door! 

So, when my equally Romanophillic friend Jill came to visit, I didn’t take any persuading to spend a day looking around the Roman ruins at Caerleon (and nearby Caerwent, but that’s for another blog).

In Roman times, from around 75 to 300AD, Caerleon was known as Isca and was one of only three permanent legionary fortresses in Britain. 

In its heyday, it was home to over 5000 soldiers of Augustus’s Second Legion. 

Nowadays, it’s a small town that acts as a satellite commuter suburb for the city of Newport but it stills has some significant Roman ruins and so is an important tourist destination.

We started at the museum, which has an impressive collection of artefacts found during local excavations. Finds range from the expected pieces of military equipment and domestic goods to children’s teeth and a treasure trove of gemstones recovered from a drain in the bath house. There is even a recreation of a burial, with a model of the face of the deceased made using modern forensic techniques.

Next we visited the ruins of bath complex. Though only a small portion of the huge original complex remains, you could certainly get a feel for how big it must once have been, and the interpretation boards, displays and lighting were very well done. I was particularly impressed with the decorative drain cover and the sculpted stone head, the exact significance of which is not known.

Quite a large portion of the fortress wall remains so we walked alongside that to return to where the car was parked. Though much eroded and with the guard towers long since robbed of their stones by local house-builders, it was still possible to imagine how tall and impenetrable it would once have looked to enemy forces.

Sitting just outside the wall are the remains of the amphitheatre, one of 75 such structures in Britain and the best preserved. Wooden grandstands, erected on the base that we see today, would once have held up to 6000 people, watching military parades and bloody battles. Bizarrely, in medieval times, people thought this structure was the site of King Arthur’s legendary round table. It would have been an extremely large table!

Our last piece of Roman Caerleon was a very brief look at the remains of one of the barrack buildings – brief because, although we had successfully dodged the rain and hail showers thus far, another wintery blast forced us to beat a hasty retreat. Though the centurions enjoyed reasonably large rooms, the legionnaires’ quarters were small and spartan, with eight men sharing a very cramped space. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be a Roman soldier.