(iv) Northumberland, Hadrian's Wall. On Hadrian's Wall no excavations have been carried out. But at Chesterholm two inscribed altars were found in the summer. One was dedicated to Juppiter Optimus Maximus; the rest of the lettering was illegible. The other, dedicated to Vulcan on behalf of the Divinity of the Imperial House by the people of the locality, possesses much interest. The dedicators describe themselves as vicani Vindolandenses, and thus give proof that the civilians living outside the fort at Chesterholm formed a vicus or something that could plausibly be described as such; further, they teach the proper name of the place, which we have been wont to call Vindolana. See further below, p. 31.
North of the Wall, at Featherwood near High Rochester (the fort Bremenium) an altar has been found, dedicated to Victory (see p. 30).
(v) Corbridge. The exploration of Corbridge was carried through its ninth season by Mr. R. H. Forster. As in 1913, the results were somewhat scanty. The area examined, which lay on the north-east of the site, adjacent to the areas examined in 1910 and 1913, seems, like them, to have been thinly occupied in Roman times; at any rate the structures actually unearthed consisted only of a roughly built foundation (25 feet diam.) of uncertain use, which there is no reason to call a temple, some other even more indeterminate foundations, and two bits of road. More interest may attach to three ditches (one for sewage) and the clay base of a rampart, which belong in some way to the northern defences of the place in various times. The full meaning of these will, however, not be discernible till complete plans are available and probably not till further excavations have been made; Mr. Forster inclines to explain parts of them as ditches of a fort held in the age of Trajan, about A.D. 90–110. Several small finds merit note. An inscribed tile seems to have served as a writing lesson or rather, perhaps, as a reading lesson: see below, p. 32. The Samian pottery included a very few pieces of '29', a good deal of early '37', which most archaeologists would ascribe to the late first or the opening second century, and some other pieces which perhaps belong to a rather later part of the same century. The coins cover much the same period; few are later than Hadrian. Among them was a hoard of 32 denarii and 12 copper of which Mr. Craster has made the following list:—
Silver: 2 Republican, 1 Julius Caesar, 1 Mark Antony, 1 Nero, 1 Galba, 3 Vitellius, 13 Vespasian, 3 Titus, 6 Domitian, 1 unidentified.
Copper: 3 Vespasian, 1 Titus, 2 Domitian, 3 Nerva, 1 Trajan, 2 unidentified.
The latest coin was the copper of Trajan—a dupondius or Second Brass of A.D. 98. All the coins had been corroded into a single mass, apparently by the burning of a wooden box in which they have been kept; this burning must have occurred about A.D. 98–100. Among the bronze objects found during the year was a dragonesque enamelled brooch.
(vi) In Upper Weardale (co. Durham) a peat-bog has given up two bronze paterae or skillets, bearing the stamp of the Italian bronze-worker Cipius Polybius, and an uninscribed bronze ladle. See below, p. 33.
(vii) Near Appleby, at Hangingshaw farm, Mr. P. Ross has come upon a Roman inscription which proves to be a milestone of the Emperor Philip (A.D. 244–6) first found in 1694 and since lost sight of (p. 35).
(viii) Ambleside Fort. The excavation of the Roman fort in Borrans Field near Ambleside, noted in my Report for 1913 (p. 13), was continued by Mr. R. G. Collingwood, Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, and others with much success. The examination of the ramparts, gates, and turrets was completed; that of the main interior buildings was brought near completion, and a beginning was made on the barracks, sufficient to show that they were, at least in part, made of wood.
The fort, as is now clear (fig. 2), was an oblong enclosure of about 300 × 420 feet, nearly 3 acres. Round it ran a wall of roughly coursed stone 4 feet thick, with a clay ramp behind and a ditch in front. Turrets stood at its corners. Four gates gave access to it; three of them were single and narrow, while the fourth, the east gate, was double and was flanked by two guard-chambers. As usual, the chief buildings stood in a row across the interior. Building I—see plan, fig. 2—was a pair of granaries, each 66 feet long, with a space between. They were of normal plan, with external buttresses, basement walls, and ventilating windows (not shown on plan). The space between them, 15 feet wide, contained marks of an oven or ovens (plan, B) and also some corn (plan, C) and may have been at one time used for drying grain stored in the granaries; how far it was roofed is doubtful. Building II, the Principia or Praetorium, a structure of 68 × 76 feet, much resembled the Principia at Hardknot, ten miles west of Ambleside, but possessed distinct features. As the plan shows, it had an entrance from the east, the two usual courts (EF), and the offices which usually face on to the inner court F. These offices, however, were only three in number instead of five, unless wooden partitions were used. Under the central office, the sacellum of the fort, where the standards and the altars for the official worship of the garrison are thought to have been kept, our fort had, at A, a sunk room or cellar, 6 feet square, entered by a stone stair. Such cellars occur at Chesters, Aesica, and elsewhere and probably served as strong-rooms for the regimental funds. At Chesters, the cellar had stone vaulting; at Ambleside there is no sign of this, and timber may have been used. In the northernmost room of the Principia some corn and woodwork as of a bin were noted (plan, C). The inner court F seemed to Mr. Collingwood to have been roofed; in its north end was a detached room, such as occurs at Chesters, of unknown use, which accords rather ill with a roof. In the colonnade round the outer court E were vestiges of a hearth or oven (plan, B). Building III (70 × 80 feet) is that usually called the commandant's house; it seems to show the normal plan of rooms arranged round a cloister enclosing a tiny open space. In buildings II and III, at D, traces were detected as of ditches and walling belonging to a fort older and probably smaller than that revealed by the excavation generally.
Small finds include coins of Faustina Iunior, Iulia Domna, and Valens, Samian of about A.D. 80 and later, including one or two bits of German Samian, a silver spoon, some glass, iron, and bronze objects, a leaden basin (?), and seven more leaden sling-bullets. It now seems clear that the fort was established about the time of Agricola (A.D. 80–5), though perhaps in smaller dimensions than those now visible, and was held till at least A.D. 365. Mr. Collingwood inclines to the view that it was abandoned after A.D. 85 and reoccupied under or about the time of Hadrian. The stratification of the turrets seems to show that it was destroyed once or twice in the second or third centuries, but the evidence is not wholly clear in details. The granaries seem to have been rebuilt once and the rooms of the commandant's house mostly have two floors.
(ix) Lancaster. In October and November 1914, structural remains thought to be Roman, including 'an old Roman fireplace, circular in shape, with stone flues branching out', were noted in the garden of St. Mary's vicarage. The real meaning of the find seems doubtful.
(x) Ribchester. In the spring of 1913 a small school-building was pulled down at Ribchester,