Fort and settlement · Northumberland, England

Vindolanda

Soldiers lived here before Hadrian’s Wall was built and long after. The ground stayed wet and airless, so it kept what usually rots: wood, leather, and letters written in ink.

Londinium, today LondonLondiniumEboracum, today YorkEboracumDeva, today ChesterDevaAquae Sulis, today BathAquae SulisCamulodunum, today ColchesterCamulodunumLuguvalium, today CarlisleVindolandaHadrian’s WallAntonine Wall
Wall lines simplified from known fort positions. Roman town names; hover for today’s: London, York, Chester, Bath and Colchester. The unlabelled dot by the Wall is Carlisle. Coast: Natural Earth.5
First fort
about AD 851
Forts on this spot
at least seven, one on another
Last fort
154 by 93 metres
Writing tablets
about 2,000 fragments
154 m93 mFootball pitch, 105 × 68 m50 metres
Outline of the last stone fort, drawn to scale from its measured platform. The dashed line marks where the ditch lay, drawn by eye. Buildings inside are left out until we can draw them from a survey.

True size

About two football pitches

The last stone fort stood on a platform 154 metres long and 93 wide, covering 1.43 hectares.1

A pitch 105 by 68 metres, a size allowed for international matches,3 covers 0.71 hectares. So the fort covered almost exactly two pitches’ worth of ground.

Area worked out on this page: 1.43 ÷ 0.714 = 2.00.

Seven forts, one on another

Oldest at the bottom, as they lie in the ground.

  1. Stone fort 2about AD 200 to 225 onwards · 1.43 haThe fort whose walls you can see today
  2. Stone fort 1Antonine period, mid 2nd century · 1.61 haWith a timber annexe of about AD 180
  3. Timber fort 5AD 112 to about 150Some buildings may have been put up for Hadrian’s visit
  4. Timber fort 4to about AD 112 · similar to fort 2First Cohort of Tungrians, a new layout
  5. Timber fort 3to about AD 102 or 103A refurbishment of fort 2. Most writing tablets date from about AD 95 to 110
  6. Timber fort 2from about AD 92 · about 2.8 haNinth Cohort of Batavians, a larger fort
  7. Timber fort 1about AD 85 to 92 · about 1.5 haFirst Cohort of Tungrians

From the Northumberland Historic Environment Record.1 Pale bands are stone forts; dark bands are timber. Band heights are equal, not to scale.

Where the sources differ

The record itself gives more than one set of dates. One entry puts the third timber fort at AD 97, the fourth at 105 and the fifth at about 120, and dates the first stone fort to about 160. An older entry, written before modern digging, dates the visible fort to about AD 300. We use the most recent and detailed entry above, and will update this page as new reports appear.1

A birthday invitation

Most Roman writing that survives was carved in stone and meant to be read by everyone. The Vindolanda tablets are the opposite: thin slips of wood, written in ink by people who expected them to be thrown away.

They were. But the ground at Vindolanda is wet and airless, so the slips did not rot. The first were found in 1973, and the record now counts about 2,000 fragments.1

“Claudia Severa to her Lepidina, greetings. On 11 September, sister, for the day of the celebration of my birthday, I give you a warm invitation to make sure that you come to us, to make the day more enjoyable for me by your arrival.”

Tab. Vindol. 291, AD 97 to 105 · Translation from Roman Inscriptions of Britain2

Sulpicia Lepidina lived in the commanding officer’s house at Vindolanda with her husband, Cerialis. Most of the letter is in a scribe’s tidy hand. The last lines, a goodbye, are in a different one, almost certainly Claudia Severa’s own. If so, it is probably the earliest known writing in Latin by a woman.2

Nearly two thousand years later, it still reads like what it is: one friend asking another to come to her party.

Sources for this page

Every number on this page comes from one of these. How we check.

  1. Northumberland County Council, Keys to the Past (Historic Environment Record N6566). Vindolanda Roman fort (Chesterholm), Henshaw. keystothepast.info/Site-Details?PRN=N6566Used for: The sequence of forts at Vindolanda, their dates, sizes and garrisons, and the finding of the writing tablets. Checked 11 November 2026.
  2. Roman Inscriptions of Britain online. Tab. Vindol. 291: Birthday invitation of Sulpicia Lepidina. Translation after A. K. Bowman and J. D. Thomas. romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions/TabVindol291Used for: The text, date, handwriting and present home of the birthday invitation. Checked 11 November 2026.
  3. The International Football Association Board. Laws of the Game, Law 1: The Field of Play. www.theifab.com/laws/latest/the-field-of-play/Used for: Pitch sizes for international matches: 100 to 110 m long, 64 to 75 m wide. Our comparison uses 105 by 68 m, inside that range. Checked 11 November 2026.
  4. The Vindolanda Charitable Trust. Roman Vindolanda Fort and Museum. www.vindolanda.com/roman-vindolanda-fort-museumUsed for: Who runs the site and visiting. Checked 11 November 2026.
  5. Natural Earth, 1:110m and 1:50m land, public domain, via the world-atlas package by Mike Bostock (ISC licence). www.naturalearthdata.com/Used for: Every coastline drawn on this site. Checked 11 November 2026.