Coggabata, or Congavata / Concavata, (with the modern name of

Drumburgh Drumburgh ( ) is a small settlement in Cumbria, England. It is northwest of the city of Carlisle and is on the course of Hadrian's Wall, near to Burgh by Sands. The village is sited on a gentle hill with a good view in all directions over the ...

) was a Roman fort on

Hadrian's Wall Hadrian's Wall ( la, Vallum Aelium), also known as the Roman Wall, Picts' Wall, or ''Vallum Hadriani'' in Latin, is a former defensive fortification of the Roman province of Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. R ...

, between Aballava ( Burgh by Sands) to the east and Mais (

Bowness-on-Solway Bowness-on-Solway is a village in the Allerdale borough of Cumbria, England. It is situated to the west of Carlisle on the southern side of the Solway Firth estuary separating England and Scotland. The civil parish had a population of 1,126 at ...

) to the west. It was built on a hill commanding views over the flatter land to the east and west and to the shore of the Solway Firth to the north. Its purpose was to guard the southern end of two important Solway fords, the Stonewath and the Sandwath. The ''

Notitia Dignitatum The ''Notitia Dignitatum'' (Latin for "The List of Offices") is a document of the late Roman Empire that details the administrative organization of the Western and the Eastern Roman Empire. It is unique as one of very few surviving documents of ...

'' gives the name of the fort as 'Congavata', but the Rudge Cup gives the name as 'Coggabata'.

Description

The fort was an oblong and built of stone, with the Wall running along its northern side, and measured north to south by east to west, occupying an area of just less than . The Wall at this point is nine feet seven inches wide, and is made of stone. It was constructed on the foundations of the levelled Turf Wall. There were gates on each side, with the north gate giving access beyond the wall. A Roman road has been proved by

LIDAR Lidar (, also LIDAR, or LiDAR; sometimes LADAR) is a method for determining ranges (variable distance) by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected light to return to the receiver. It can also be ...

photography to have linked Coggabata with the nearby Roman fort at Kirkbride to the south-west.Roman roads in Cumbria, www.romanroads.org There is a pele tower, Drumburgh Castle (shown above right), lying across the line of the north wall of the fort, built entirely of Roman stones.

Garrison

The ''

'' gives the garrison as the Second Cohort of Lingones but only a detachment could be accommodated in such a small fort.

Excavations

The site was excavated in 1899, when the stone fort was revealed. A buttressed granary was found within the north-west angle of the fort. Excavations in 1947 revealed that the stone fort had been built within a slightly larger fort whose clay ramparts had been levelled. It is presumed that the earthwork fort had been added to the initial Turf Wall version of Hadrian's Wall in Cumbria, and that the stone fort replaced it when the Turf Wall was re-built in stone. This would date the stone fort to about 160 AD. No sign of a vicus has yet been detected near to the fort.

References

* J. Collingwood Bruce, Roman Wall (1863), Harold Hill & Son, * Frank Graham, The Roman Wall, Comprehensive History and Guide (1979), Frank Graham,

External links

''Concavata'' at www.Roman-Britain.co.ukiRomans
website showing Coggabata objects in the

Tullie House Museum Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery is a museum in Carlisle, England. Opened by the Carlisle Corporation in 1893, the original building is a converted Jacobean mansion, with extensions added when it was converted. At first the building conta ...

collection in Carlisle {{coord, 54.927, N, 3.148, W, source:placeopedia, display=title Forts of Hadrian's Wall Roman fortifications in England Roman sites in Cumbria