The Roman army had a fort and garrison at Vindolanda from 85 AD – its foundation came after Agricola defeated Britannia’s northern tribes at the battle of Mons Graupius. The fort defended the central section of a supply route that ran from east to west of northern Britannia. Hadrian’s Wall was built some 40 years later in the 120s AD.
The buildings of the early fort were made of timber, much of which survives up to six metres below ground level. The Vindolanda site museum displays a vast range of bronze, wood, iron, leather and textile objects found at the site. The Vindolanda tablets – correspondence, accounts and other documents written on wooden sheets – are the most important discovery to have been made at the site. They are the earliest archive of written material in British history, dating from the year before Hadrian’s Wall was built.
The site was inhabited continuously until the end of Roman rule at the beginning of the fifth century AD, and even after that there are signs of occupation for another two centuries. The site is now managed by the Vindolanda Trust, who estimates that it will take at least another 150 years to thoroughly excavate the site, such is the complexity of the different archaeological layers.
