"Listen, lad. I've built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started here, all there was, was swamp. All the kings said I was daft to build a castle in a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. An' that's what your gonna get, lad -- the strongest castle in these islands." (Monty Python and the Holy Grail).
Vindolanda on Hadrian's Wall Map. Map by Norman Einstein
I have no idea if the erudite scholars who made up Monty Python's Flying Circus referred to the Roman Fort of Vindolanda in their ridiculous movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but they certainly could have.
Vindolanda was a Roman fort, or rather a series of Roman forts built and rebuilt at the juncture of two streams that eventually fed into the River South Tyne, beginning about AD 85. At the time of the first construction, Vindolanda was one of several forts built on the Stanegate Road, what is now approximately the border of England and Scotland. During Vindolanda's use by Roman forces, Hadrian's Wall was built a few kilometers to the north.
Conditions at the time of the first timber constructions were mucky--the archaeological excavations gruesomely detail struggles with working in mud and pumping out water. The interior floors of the fort(s) were carpeted with a smelly combination of bracken, moss and hay to keep people's feet above the water. Such a watery, smelly, organic mess turned out to be a very good thing for archaeology: over 1300 letters, written to and from the garrisoned soldiers, commanders and their wives on slivers of wood called the Vindolanda Tablets, have been preserved in Vindolanda's muck.
Visiting the fort today, you'd have little idea of the original conditions: the successive constructions have raised the level of the fort quite a bit. But during the early days, by golly, you'd have experienced the value of this extensive drainage system.
- Read more Vindolanda
- Read more about the Vindolanda Letters
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