More information : To the S of Housesteads fort, occupying the sides and the crests of two separate ridges of sandstone, are a large number of small surface quarries. The greatest concentration is on the ridge nearest the modern road from NY 782 679 to NY 796 686, with the largest of them roughly opposite the fort. They range from 3m across to a length of 35m and up to 3.5m deep. On the next escarpment to the N, the surface quarries extend from NY 783 to NY 788 684. In the absence of any finds e.g. inscriptions or portable objects, they cannot be dated, but their proximity to the fort and the Wall as a source of building stone suggests that at least some of them may be Roman in origin. With the construction of the Military Road in the 1750s and the demand for stone following the Inclosure Act of 1797, it is probable that some date from that period. The quarries were surveyed at 1:1000 as a part of the RCHME Housesteads Survey. (1)
Located on the English Heritage map of Hadrian's Wall 2010. (2) |