THE FORT, ANNEXES and AMPHITHEATRE
The fields behind the Stone, to right and left, up to the foothills of Eildon Hill North on your right (a Bronze Age tribal capital of the Votadini, twinned with Traprain Law in East Lothian) contained a very large Roman fort surrounded in the second century by a 20' high stone wall, backed on the inside by an enormous 'wedge' of earth ie a 'rampart' 40' across at its base, and 'fronted', on the outside, by a set of three ditches (the barbed wire of the ancient world), the first of which was 20' across and 10' deep. Behind you, to the North, was an 'annexe' or settlement, leading down to the river, surrounded itself by a smaller ditch and rampart, where people lived and worked at all sorts of trades under the protection of the fort. Similar 'annexes' existed elsewhere: to the West, in the field with the telegraph poles, leading down to Newstead (where, in from the turn of the road, and removed a little from the military atmosphere, stood the huge half-timbered mansio - motel/admin/trading centre - and the fort bathhouse, with its curved concrete roofs - in the Spring see in the field the dark patch of the dumped coal and charcoal, even after 2,000 years) ; to the South, spreading up the low green ridge to the left of the Eildon, (part-industrial estate/market town, part field system) ; and to the East, along the road on which you are standing, stretching beyond the field to the railway viaduct line and beyond.
(As you walk East you will come to a gap in the hedge on the left - the first century North Gate; over the hedge to the right you may be able to see, in a good dry summer like 1996, the yellow marks of the buried streets and buildings of the fort, as if from an aerial photograph, such as in the Museum. Still walking on, at the point when you can see the three bridges - railway, 18th century road, and modern A68 - the hollow on your left is the first Roman military amphitheatre to be identified in Scotland (by Dr Lonie of Newstead in 1991) and, at present, the most Northerly and Westerly in the Roman Empire. Between the little 18th century bridge and the A68 bridge there was a second century stone Roman bridge described in 1743 as a 'famous bridge' there was a second century stone Roman bridge. The road mound has been found: the bridge stones, in the water, if any are left are more elusive. - carrying Dere Street across the Tweed. The first century crossing may have been by ford or bridge to the West of Newstead on the flat land North West of Millmount Farm, where aerial photographs show a temporary camp.
The whole complex covers some 370 acres. The landowners are Col Younger of Ravenswood, Melrose and Lord Devonport of Kirkwhelpington, both Trustees of the Trimontium Trust.