More information : (NY 88201115) Earthworks (NR) Roper Castle or Round Table (1)
Ropers Castle, Roman Fort. (2)
"The signalling system connected with Maiden Castle (NY 81 SE 2) extended eastwards through the pass by means of a post at Roper Castle, which dr Richmond had visited, and identified as a Roman oblong work. (3)
The features of Roper Castle "much resemble a circular Roman signal station, even though the form has been delineated as ovoid rather than circular ... the ovoid shape is in reality due to the outward spreading of a rampart belonging to an oblong with rounded angles, similar in size and plan to the Bowes Moor earthwork". It measures 60 ft by 40 ft over it's ramparts, the ditch is 10 ft wide and has an upcast mound outside it. The entrance is also considerably spread and it's original size difficult to estimate. It lies unusually far from the Roman Road, 1645 yards SSW from the seventh milestone west of Bowes, across wet and boggy terrain. But it commands a full view of the Bowes Moor station, just over three miles further down the pass to the east, and unexpectedly looks straight at Maiden Castle one mile three furlongs distant, through a notch in the shoulder of Moudy Mea. The position is deliberately and skilfully chosen in order to serve as a link between these two stations. It's distance from the Roman road serves to emphasise that it can have had no connection with convoy-duty; it's sole purpose and that of the system to which it belongs was manifestly signalling. (4)
Roman Signal Station (R) (Site of) (NAT) Roper Castle or Round Table (NAT) (5)
The remains consist of a roughly rectangular rampart about 1.0m high (reduced in the south to an outward scarp only) set on a platform and measuring about 16.5m E/W by 12.5m N/S between centres. Internally the central area appears as a much mutilated turf-covered mound about 0.7m high with an amorphous hollow and ill-defined entrance in the S. Traces of an infilled ditch are visible outside the rampart but are not continued along the level S side. There is no trace of any 'upcast mound' or bank on the outer lip of the ditch. The station is unusually placed on the south side of a ridge, and not as one would expect on the top, where both Maiden Castle and the Bowes Moor Stations are clearly visible and where an even better view of the road is possible. Richmond's implication, therefore, that this was the only suitable site is incorrect.
Surveyed at 10:00 000. Clarification Sketch at 1:1250. (6)
Farrar notes that the site has no visible bank outside the counterscarp of the ditch and is as oval in shape as a 'sub-rectangular' work can be. The irregularly mounded interior did not seem to merit Richmond's description as a 'rectangular platform'. An old terrace-way, in places ridged like a Roman agger, passes a few metres south of the site. (7)
Scheduled under 'Camps and Settlements'. (8) |