The story of Chesters
When Hadrian’s Wall was begun in AD 122 there were no forts on it. Within two years the plan changed, and 15 forts were added to the line. The first of them were built straight across the Wall, half on each side. At Chesters the builders filled in the ditch in front of the Wall and knocked down a turret they had only just finished, to make room.1
Five hundred horsemen
An inscription from Hadrian’s reign names the first garrison: the ala Augusta ob virtutem appellata, “the cavalry regiment called Augusta for its courage”, about 500 strong. Riders and horses lived under one roof, in stable-barracks. A regiment that size needed 16 of them, each holding about 32 men and their horses.1
The fort sat where the Wall crossed the North Tyne. A bridge carried the Wall over the river, and you can still see the abutment on the east bank.1
Riders from Spain
By AD 178 to 184 at the latest a new cavalry regiment was here: the ala II Asturum, the Second Asturians, first raised in northern Spain. They stayed for the rest of the Roman period. The barracks you can see were rebuilt for them in the later 2nd or early 3rd century, and there was no longer room for 16, which suggests the regiment had been cut to 12 or 14 troops of horse.1
The years from about AD 180 to 250 were the fort’s best. Most of its inscriptions date from then: new buildings, oaths of loyalty to the emperor, offerings to the gods and the burial of the dead. A village of traders and soldiers’ families spread out to the south. It has never been excavated.1
Sons of soldiers
By the 4th century the men at Chesters were local. In the late empire a soldier’s son had to serve too, so the regiment filled itself from the families around the fort. They were much poorer than the soldiers of a century before and were partly paid in goods, though coins were still used. Even so, the fort still had room for 12 barracks, about 360 horsemen.1
There is no clear sign of anyone living at Chesters after the early 5th century. Around AD 675 Saxon builders came to take apart the bridge for stone to build the church at Hexham, and farmers and stone-robbers worked over the ruins for a thousand years after that.1
Where the evidence is unclear
Was the fort empty in the 140s and 150s?While the Antonine Wall in Scotland was held, from about AD 142 to 160, no one knows if Chesters kept a garrison. The Sixth Legion was building here sometime between 138 and 161, and an infantry unit from Dalmatia left an inscription, so someone was here.1
When did the Asturians leave?A late Roman list, the Notitia Dignitatum, still puts them at Chesters. But no one knows when that part of the list was written, so it cannot tell us how long they stayed into the late 4th or early 5th century.1
The man who dug it up
Nathaniel Clayton bought the estate in 1796 and had the ruins flattened to make a park between his house and the river. His son John Clayton (1792–1890) undid that. He dug at Chesters from 1843 until he died, and almost everything you can see there today he uncovered. He also helped save the middle stretch of the Wall from destruction. His nephew opened the museum in 1896, and the fort passed into public care in 1954.1
