Huddersfield in Roman Times
By Ian A. Richmond

THE DISTRICT UNDER AGRICOLA AND HIS SUCCESSORS,
A.D. 80-117

THE FORT AT SLACK—SITE AND DEFENCES
Agricola founded the fort at Slack in A.D. 79-80 to fit into such a system as has been outlined. And the new fort guarded, with others like it, the great road between the fortresses at Chester and York, which now was laid out in the hills in definitely Roman fashion. The road, therefore, governed the position of the fort, and dictated that it should lie on the north side of Slaw Clough, whence the road could pass on to Goat Hill and Buckstones Moss by a gentle slope. The site chosen for the fort lay between Shaw Clough and two small streams, of which the eastern one was artificially deepened in Roman times but now is dried up. Only on the north, where the Roman road ran upon level ground between the fort and the modern Newhey road, was the defence weak; on other sides Nature helped the work of man, and in the circumstances Agricola could not have chosen better.

The Roman Fort at Slack

The corners of the fort faced the cardinal points; it was defended by a rampart, twenty feet wide and built with turves laid like bricks, whose outer edge rested upon an eight-foot course of roughly fitted stones. The space thus enclosed was three hundred and fifty-six feet square. With the erection of the rampart well may be connected two inscribed stones noted by Watson in 1757, who read the first as C REURRINI, and the second as OPUS. They have now disappeared, but may be restored as c(enturia) Reburrini (the centuria of Reburrinus built this) and opus (the work of….name lost). Such inscriptions occur frequently elsewhere and refer to the performance of work by detachments of soldiers.

Section Across Rampart at Slack
A = ditch; B = stone foundation; C = rampart of sods

All the gates of the fort were wooden; the north-west and the south-west gates were single; the north-east and the south-east were double; and all except the south-west were flanked by wooden towers. Wooden towers also protected the north corner, and probably the west and south corners of the fort. Usually, however, only the holes, sometimes lined with stones, which held the main posts of these erections, remain; and on the plan of the fort the shape of the buildings which they represent is drawn in full. But at the northern corner tower the stumps of the posts survived.

At the north-western gate, and apparently at the south-western gate also, the road passed out over a double ditch by a wooden bridge. These two ditches ran from the north-eastern gate to a point situated well past the north-western gate, and they continued at least as far as the western corner of the fort, beyond which excavation was impossible in 1913-1915. A single ditch, drained off at its eastern end into the clough, ran from the south-eastern gate to the eastern corner.

Surroundings of the Roman Fort at Slack

The limits and defences of the settlement, or annexe, outside the fort are fairly clear. As far as the eastern stream the whole area was roughly paved, like the spaces identified as parade-grounds at Gellygaer, Hardknot and Maryport. And since the stream was artificially deepened it probably served as a boundary or defence. Further north there seems to have been a ditch fronting a rough bank or palisade. Ditches A, B and C were revealed by excavation, and, since they seem to form a system but to differ in construction, it may be thought that they were dug at the edge of the inhabited ground from time to time, as the area of the annexe became larger. At the point marked D a ditch ran towards the western corner of the fort, if the ditch C were extended to the south-west so as to reach the eastern stream, the area thus enclosed would form an annexe of reasonable size, nearly three times as big as the fort itself. This compares favourably with the size of similar settlements at other forts.

© Copyright of Kirklees Museums and Galleries