Seabegs Wood

At Seabegs Wood, the line of the Antonine Wall still reads across the ground, with a waterlogged ditch recorded by earlier archaeologists and the nearby Forth and Clyde Canal underpass known as the Pend. It is a small but important part of the Roman frontier landscape, where the boundary itself is as central as the fortlet.

Excavation has revealed a Roman fortlet attached to the wall’s south side, while the wider setting includes neighbouring forts and marching camps. The site shows how a defended frontier worked through a network of different-sized installations rather than through isolated forts alone.

The outline of the Antonine Wall has lasted at Seabegs. Archaeologists of earlier generations recorded it and noted that the ditch was deep and waterlogged. An underpass beneath the Forth and Clyde Canal nearby is known locally as the Pend.

In the 1890s the Antonine Wall Committee of the Glasgow Archaeological Society cut several trenches across the Roman rampart and uncovered its stone base. Later excavation in 1977 found a Roman fortlet attached to the south of the rampart, and in 1981 a mound was examined, though little came of it.

The neighbouring forts are Castlecary to the west and Rough Castle to the east. Sir George Macdonald and others reasoned that because those two stood relatively far apart, some further structure was likely in the Seabegs area — which is what the 1977 work confirmed.

No coinage has been recovered from the site and no inscriptions. There are two marching camps nearby, at Dalnair and Milnquarter.

Seabegs Wood formed part of the ancient Barony of Seabegs, and is now part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site as the best preserved portion of the Antonine Wall. The Seabegs Collection of ancient Roman coinage was donated to Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to commemorate that connection; it consists of gold, silver and bronze portrait coinage depicting the majority of the Roman emperors.