Roman Britain in 1914 | Page 5

of which this building had stood. The work was
carried out by Prof. W. B. Anderson, of Manchester University, and Mr.
D. Atkinson, Research Fellow of Reading College, and, though limited
in extent, was very successful.
The first discovery of the Principia is due to Miss Greenall, who about
1905 was building a house close to the school and took care that certain
remains found by her builders should be duly noted: excavations in
1906-7, however, left the size and extent of these remains somewhat
uncertain and resulted in what we now know to be an incorrect plan.
The work done last spring makes it plain (fig. 3) that the Principia
fronted--in normal fashion--the main street of the fort (gravel laid on
cobbles) running from the north to the south gate. But, abnormally, the
frontage was formed by a verandah or colonnade: the only parallel
which I can quote is from Caersws, where excavations in 1909 revealed
a similar verandah in front of the Principia[2]. Next to the verandah
stood the usual Outer Court with a colonnade round it and two wells in
it (one is the usual provision): the colonnade seemed to have been twice
rebuilt. Beyond that are fainter traces of the Inner Court which,
however, lies mostly underneath a churchyard: the only fairly clear
feature is a room (A on plan) which seems to have stood on the right
side of the Inner Court, as at Chesters and Ambleside (fig. 2, above).
Behind this, probably, stood the usual five office rooms. If we carry the
Principia about 20 feet further back, which would be a full allowance
for these rooms with their walling, the end of the whole structure will
line with the ends of the granaries found some years ago. This, or
something very like it, is what we should naturally expect. We then
obtain a structure measuring 81 × 112 feet, the latter dimension
including a verandah 8 feet wide. This again seems a reasonable result.
Ribchester was a large fort, about 6 acres, garrisoned by cavalry; in a
similar fort at Chesters, on Hadrian's Wall, the Principia measured 85 ×
125 feet: in the 'North Camp' at Camelon, another fort of much the
same size (nearly 6 acres), they measured 92 × 120 feet.
[Footnote 2: I saw this verandah while open. The whole excavations at
Caersws yielded important results and it is more than regrettable that
no report of them has ever been issued.]

[Illustration: FIG. 3. RIBCHESTER FORT, HEAD-QUARTERS]
(xi) Slack. The excavation of the Roman fort at Slack, near
Huddersfield, noted in my report for 1913 (p. 14), was continued in
1914 by Mr. P. W. Dodd and Mr. A. M. Woodward, lecturers in Leeds
University, which is doing good work in the exploration of southern
Yorkshire. The defences of the fort, part of its central buildings (fig. 4,
I-III), and part of its other buildings (B-K) have now been attacked.
The defences consist of (1) a ditch 15 feet wide, possibly double on the
north (more exactly north-west) side and certainly absent on the
southern two-thirds of the east (north-east) side; (2) a berme, 8 feet
wide; and (3) a rampart 20-5 feet thick, built of turf and strengthened
by a rough stone base which is, however, only 8-10 feet wide. Of the
four gates, three (west, north, and east) have been examined; all are
small and have wooden gate-posts instead of masonry. On each side of
the east gate, which is the widest (15 ft.), the rampart is thought to
thicken as if for greater defence. The absence of a ditch on the southern
two-thirds of the east side may be connected with some paving outside
the east gate and also with a bath-house, partly explored in 1824 and
1865, outside the south-east (east) corner; we may think that here was
an annexe. The central buildings, so far as uncovered, are of stone; the
Principia (III) perhaps had some wooden partitions. They are all
ill-preserved and call for no further comment. West of them, in the rear
of the fort, the excavators traced two long narrow wooden buildings (B,
C), north of the road from the west (south-west) gate to the back of the
Principia; on the other side of the road they found the ends of two
similar buildings (D, E). This looks as if this portion of the fort was
filled with four barracks. On the other side of the row of buildings I-III
remains were traced of stone structures; one of these (F) had the
L-shape characteristic of barracks, and indications point to two others
(G, H) of the same shape. This implies six barrack buildings in this
portion of the fort and ten barrack buildings in all, that is, a cohort
1,000 strong. But the whole