Lavatrae , also known as Lavatris, was a Roman fort in the modern-day village of

Bowes Bowes is a village and civil parish in County Durham, England. Located in the Pennine hills, it is situated close to Barnard Castle. It is built around the medieval Bowes Castle. In 2021 the parish had a population of 442.Table PP002 - Se ...

County Durham County Durham, officially simply Durham, is a ceremonial county in North East England.UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. The county borders Northumberland and Tyne an ...

, England. The medieval Bowes Castle was built within the perimeter of the fort.

Roman period

The Romans built a fort with wooden ramparts at Lavatrae in the early AD 70s, after an invasion of the region by Governor Petilius Cerealis. It was intended as a waypoint on the northern leg of the Roman equivalent of

Watling Street Watling Street is a historic route in England, running from Dover and London in the southeast, via St Albans to Wroxeter. The road crosses the River Thames at London and was used in Classical Antiquity, Late Antiquity, and throughout the M ...

in the section connecting

Luguvalium Luguvalium (or ''Luguvalium Carvetiorum'') was an ancient Roman Empire, Roman city in northern Roman Britain, Britain located within present-day Carlisle, Cumbria, Carlisle, Cumbria, and may have been the capital of the 4th-century Roman provinc ...

(

Carlisle Carlisle ( , ; from ) is a city in the Cumberland district of Cumbria, England. Carlisle's early history is marked by the establishment of a settlement called Luguvalium to serve forts along Hadrian's Wall in Roman Britain. Due to its pro ...

) to

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(

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) and points south. It guarded the eastern entrance to the Stainmore Pass through the

Pennines The Pennines (), also known as the Pennine Chain or Pennine Hills, are a range of highland, uplands mainly located in Northern England. Commonly described as the "Vertebral column, backbone of England" because of its length and position, the ra ...

, overlooking the River Greta. The name Verterae, arguably another name for "Lavatrae", meant "summit". Stone walls were built around the site in the 130s, and an external settlement called a ''vicus'' was constructed to the north of the fort, with a bathhouse to the south-east. The bathhouse was , tiled and appears to have been destroyed in a fire, and then rebuilt. The fort and the ''vicus'' were occupied until at least the late 4th century.

Post-Roman period

The bathhouse was excavated in the 19th century. Minor archaeological investigations were undertaken in 1923, while the Office of Works was carrying out repairs on the medieval castle, with more deliberate investigations of the Roman fort being carried out in 1954, 1966–67, 1970, 1988, 1990 and 2009. Cambridge Museum of Archaeology has a stone altar from the bathhouse, erected by the 1st Cohort of the Thracians. Only earthworks and the parts of the stone walls of the bathhouse survive in the 21st century.

References

Bibliography

* {{Ancient Rome topics Roman sites in County Durham Roman fortifications in England