Roman Fort
Whickham - Washing Well Roman Fort
In 1970 Dr. McCord, on a flight from Sunderland airport noticed odd lines in a field between Team Valley and Whickham. The lines showed the typical playing card shape of a Roman Fort and an east and north gate. This was thought to be the missing piece of the stanegate jigsaw. Carlisle was linked to Corbridge with a series of forts, this line did not extend to the east coast and Whickham fort could solve the mystery.
The site of the fort lies just south of the old farmhouse of Washing Wells in Whickham. The ground slopes away on all sides except the north, where the approach is more level.
Aerial photographs clearly show a succession of Roman military structures; the main cropmarks represent successive lines of ditches of several phases or periods. At two points groups of symmetrically placed cropmarks suggest large post holes, which may have held timber uprights of gateway structures. It may therefore, be reasonably concluded that the site is that of a pre - Hadrianic fort. Faint cropmarks exist in a field near this site, which may indicate barrows and non - Roman occupation of the area. Another find of interest in the same general area is a Bronze Age burial. Material from this is in Sunderland Museum.
A survey by the Dept of Archaeology of the University of Durham in 1998 found that although the overall dimensions could not be determined with certainty, it was thought the area of the fort was C.2.5 hectares the size normally associated with a garrison of 480 men. The date and function of Washing Wells fort is unclear, but if this fort represents a practice camp, where a variety of methods of defence were practiced - ditches, rampart types, survey and lay - out - the varied nature of the evidence might be explained.