Hardknott Roman Fort

Hardknott Pass
Holmrook
Cumbria, England
United Kingdom

Hardknott Roman Fort is dramatically sited on the foothills of Scafell Pike, England's highest mountain. It controlled the Esk valley and the east/west route through the Hardknott and Wrynose passes which connected it to the forts at Ravenglass and Ambleside. 

It was built around AD 120 and, although construction work was normally done by Legionaries, Hardknott seems to have been raised by Auxiliary troops albeit they may simply have been upgrading an earlier fort. It was known by the Latin name of Mediobogdo. 

The fort was garrisoned by the Fourth Cohort of Dalmatians (Cohors Quartae Delmatarum), a 500-strong infantry regiment drawn from modern day Bosnia Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro

The fort is square with rounded corners, 125 yards long externally, with a rampart wall almost 6 feet thick. Adjacent ditches added to the total width of the defenses. Many of the remaining low walls of the fort were restored some years ago, but an obvious course of dark local slate shows the height of the walls before their rebuilding. The outer wall had four portals, at the center of each side, and guard towers at each corner.

Within the walls are the remaining outlines of several buildings, including two adjacent granaries, the garrison headquarters building, and the commander’s villa. In addition to these stone buildings, timber structures would have housed barracks, but little remains of them. Outside the square of the fort itself lie the remains of the bathhouse, which has a very rare circular sweat room or sauna, and the leveled parade ground, which is considered to be the finest surviving examples in the Western Roman Empire.

Outside the square of the fort are the remains of the bath house (which has a rare circular Sudatorium), and the levelled parade ground, which is considered to be the finest surviving example in the Western Empire

The parade ground is approximately two hundred yards higher up the slope to the east of the fort. A track led up to it from the East Gate of the fort. A plan of the fort by R. G. Collingwood in 1930 shows the parade ground to have been as big as the fort, with embanked edges to ensure a level surface

View all my pictures of the fort here >>

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kenfitzpatrick/albums/72157715048497962

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/hardknott-roman-fort