The story of Corbridge
The first Roman base here was half a mile to the west, at Red House, probably built for Agricola’s campaigns into Scotland between AD 77 and 83. It was given up in about AD 86, perhaps because the river flooded it, and a new fort was built on the present site, a better place for a lasting bridge.1
Fort I burnt down in about AD 105, maybe in an attack. Fort II was part of a new frontier along the Stanegate road and was altered in about AD 122 to support the new Wall. In AD 139 and 140, when the army moved north to build the Antonine Wall, Corbridge was busy again: inscriptions record big new buildings, probably granaries, for the road north.1
A base for the legions
In the early 160s Corbridge changed. Soldiers from two legions, the Twentieth from Chester and the Sixth from York, arrived and built temples and other big buildings. They had two jobs: to help hold the Wall and the outpost forts up the road into Scotland, and to run Corbridge as a store and market for the whole frontier.1
They began a vast square building, now called Site XI, 67 by 65.5 metres, with rooms opening onto a courtyard. It was probably a warehouse and market. The blocks were huge and fitted so tightly that no mortar was used. It was never finished: a fire swept the site, and building never started again. Some link that fire to the invasion across the Wall in the early 180s.12
The town
In the early 3rd century two walled compounds housed soldiers from the legions, and the great granaries were rebuilt in the form you can see. Corbridge was one of the two main supply bases for the emperor Septimius Severus’s war in Scotland, AD 208 to 211.1
A real town grew up around the soldiers. It had a public fountain fed by an aqueduct; the edges of its stone trough are worn down, perhaps by generations of people washing clothes. By the 3rd century it was probably the capital of a self-governing district, though its name for that is lost. The main road through it was still being repaired as late as AD 370. Then, when Roman government collapsed in the early 5th century, the town seems to have emptied quickly.12
Where the evidence is unclear
Who burnt the market hall?The fire is certain; its date and cause are not. The building was begun sometime between about AD 160 and 185. An invasion in the early 180s fits, but nothing proves it.1
Was there a garrison at the end?Soldiers may still have lived in the compounds in the 4th century, but no one knows which unit, and little is known about the town’s walls.1
Treasure hunters
The ruins were a quarry long before they were history. Builders of St Wilfrid’s church at Hexham took stone from here as early as the 670s. King John dug for treasure in 1201 and found only stones “marked with brass, iron and lead”, the metal clamps that once held Roman blocks together. The site was ploughed flat by about 1810. Proper digging began in 1906, and in 1964 archaeologists found a wooden chest buried under Site XI around AD 105 to 120, holding tools, weapons and two suits of plate armour, the best preserved ever found.1
