Archaeologists Uncover a Previously Unknown Roman Fortlet Beneath Suburban Gardens in Scotland, Expanding the Antonine Wall's Defensive Map
GUARD Archaeology has published findings from a 2017 excavation in Bearsden that revealed a fortified Roman outpost hidden under residential back gardens, offering the clearest evidence yet of a denser surveillance network along the Antonine Wall than historians had assumed.
Overview
A Roman fortlet that garrisoned between 20 and 50 soldiers has been identified beneath suburban back gardens on Boclair Road in Bearsden, roughly five miles northwest of Glasgow. The discovery, published by GUARD Archaeology in a report titled ARO65: Discovery of an Antonine Wall Roman Fortlet at Boclair Road, Bearsden, adds a previously undocumented installation to the defensive infrastructure of the Antonine Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that once marked the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire.
The site was first encountered in 2017 during pre-development archaeological work at three adjoining residential properties, funded by the landowners under planning conditions imposed by East Dunbartonshire Council. Historic Environment Scotland subsequently commissioned further excavation after recognizing the significance of the initial findings.
What the Excavation Revealed
Archaeologists led by Maureen Kilpatrick uncovered the stone foundations of a turf rampart with a kerbed stone base, together with a parallel defensive ditch running perpendicular to the line of the Antonine Wall. The ditch deposits contained peat, preserved wood, and vegetation. Two sherds of Roman pottery were found beneath the stone base, providing material confirmation of the site’s military origin.
Radiocarbon analysis of wood recovered from the base of the ditch returned a date range of AD 127 to 247, placing the fortlet squarely within the period when the Antonine Wall was actively garrisoned and the decades immediately following its abandonment. The wall itself was built beginning around AD 142 on the orders of Emperor Antoninus Pius and was occupied for approximately 20 years before Roman forces withdrew southward to Hadrian’s Wall in the AD 160s.
A geophysical survey of the wider site also identified surviving sections of the Antonine Wall itself, with structural features aligned at right angles to the wall line, suggesting the fortlet was deliberately integrated into the frontier’s layout.
Strategic Position and Landscape
The fortlet sits on elevated terrain adjacent to the Antonine Wall, a position that gave its garrison commanding views over the surrounding landscape, particularly toward the north, which remained beyond Roman control. Critically, the site maintains direct sightlines to the larger Roman fort at Bearsden, whose well-preserved bath house and latrine have been open to visitors since their discovery during housing construction in the 1970s. This intervisibility indicates the fortlet functioned as part of an integrated surveillance and communications network rather than as an isolated outpost.
Specialist analysis of plant remains and fossil beetles recovered from the ditch deposits reconstructed the landscape the Roman soldiers would have surveyed. The environment consisted of largely open pasture and partially cleared woodland dominated by alder, hazel, and willow, with smaller amounts of oak and birch. The grass composition suggests the surrounding land was grazed or otherwise managed as open ground.
A Denser Frontier Than Previously Mapped
The Antonine Wall stretched nearly 40 miles across central Scotland from the River Clyde north of Glasgow to the Firth of Forth north of Edinburgh. Unlike Hadrian’s Wall to the south, which was built from stone, the Antonine Wall was constructed from turf blocks laid on a stone base. Along its length, the Roman army built approximately 17 major forts and a network of smaller fortlets, each typically housing a few dozen soldiers who rotated from nearby larger garrisons.
The Bearsden fortlet brings the number of confirmed fortlets along the wall to at least ten, though archaeologists estimate that as many as 41 such installations may have originally existed. The gap between the known and suspected total underscores how much of the wall’s infrastructure remains hidden beneath modern development, farmland, and, in this case, residential gardens.
The discovery also connects to an earlier find announced in 2023, when Historic Environment Scotland used gradiometry to detect a separate fortlet near Carleith Farm in West Dunbartonshire without excavation. That site, first documented by antiquarian Robert Sibbald in 1707 and unsuccessfully sought during excavations in the 1970s and 1980s, was the ninth confirmed fortlet. Together, the Carleith and Bearsden discoveries suggest that systematic geophysical survey and developer-funded archaeology are beginning to close the gap between the historical record and the physical evidence along this frontier.
What Remains Unknown
The excavation was limited to three residential garden plots, meaning the full extent of the fortlet has not been mapped. Whether additional structures, storage facilities, or a gate complex lie beneath neighboring properties remains to be determined. The radiocarbon date range of AD 127 to 247 is broad enough to encompass both the wall’s active occupation and a possible post-abandonment phase, but the excavated evidence does not yet clarify whether the fortlet continued to serve any function after the main withdrawal to Hadrian’s Wall.
More broadly, the discovery raises the question of how many other fortlets, signal stations, or minor installations remain undetected along the Antonine Wall’s 40-mile course. With much of the route now beneath modern suburbs, roads, and infrastructure, future discoveries may depend heavily on the kind of developer-triggered archaeological work that produced this find.