p topping, new signal station in cumbria

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A 'New' Signal Station in CumbriaAuthor(s): P. ToppingSource: Britannia, Vol. 18 (1987), pp. 298-300Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/526461.

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298 NOTESwells such as Coventina's shrine at Carrawburgh139nd Lower Slaughter, Glos.1 contained a numberof votive sculptures. Finally, the exceptionally important parallel of Kelvedon in Essex should beconsidered. Here, a well which was filled in during the second century A.D. contained a pot set in aniche inside which was a stylised chalk figurine.141This is of particular interest in that there was aniche in the Deal pit which very possibly housed the Kent statuette.

The Deal figurine comes from a context which may or may not itself be religious. The relativelyundamaged and unworn condition of the object suggests deliberate deposition rather than rubbishdisposal. So a primary cult-context is quite likely even if we have no independent evidence for anunderground shrine or chapel. A possible explanation of the figurine's presence, if the chamber wereto be interpreted as a store rather than a shrine, is that the figure was placed there to guard, protectand bless the contents.It is impossible to have any real idea as to the identity of the Deal figurine. The Entremont severedheads, with their apparently closed eyes and mouthless faces, are perhaps representative of the headsof dead enemies (here and at other southern Gaulish shrines real skulls were set in niches intemple-walls and may be the vanquished captives referred to by the classical authors). It is tempting,in view of Deal Man's context, to see him as an underworld deity, but this can only be wistfulspeculation.Leaving aside the significance of the context, the figurine is fascinating and important in itsown right. Although the general style conforms to Celtic artistic tradition, the find is itself extremelyrare. The only close parallels are at Garton Slack and these are of Iron Age date. Apart from theKelvedon find, the Deal statuette is unique in southern Britain and in terms of Romano-Celticrepresentation in Britain or Gaul. The complete absence of human realism and the consequentialintensity of schematism has produced a powerful image; in the words of Sandars142he Deal image is'telling much and concealing much'.78, Archers Court Road, Whitfield, Dover, (K.P.)Open University in Wales, Cardiff (M.G.)

139 Ross, op. cit. (note I I8), 29-3I, 218.140J. Rhodes, Romano-British Sculptures (1964).141 Eddy, op. cit. (note 121).142 N.K. Sandars, Prehistoric Art in Europe (1968), 226.

A 'new' signal station in Cumbria. P. Topping writes: This site was recorded by Hodgson,143but wasthen classified as a circular ditched cairn of prehistoric date. However, inspection by RCHME of airphotographs taken in 1947 once again brought this site to attention; its apparent regularity in layoutand sub-rectangular form suggested that its original classification could be in doubt.144 Subsequentfield investigation has shown that the site is indeed a Roman signal station intervisible with that knownas Robin Hood's Butt to the SW and the outpost fort at Bewcastle, thus forming the missing link in acontinuous line of communication between the Wall frontier and Bewcastle to its N.The earthwork is located at NY 59597516 upon the prominent W-facing sandstone crag of Barron'sPike145 at a height of 355 m OD, commanding panoramic views in all directions but the E where theapproach is almost level. A recent forestry plantation has encroached upon the E limits of this site andpartially destroyed the remains of a concentric outwork.The principal surviving feature of the site is a ditch which varies in width from 3.5 m in the W,where it appears to be rock-cut and well-preserved, up to 5.5 m in the E where a bog has formed inpoorly drained conditions promoting erosion of the ditch sides. In the W it was possible to note thatthe ditch originally had steep sides and a V-shaped profile. The depth of the ditch ranges from 0.4 m inthe E to 0.9 m in the better preserved W sections. In the W the ditch is broken by a causeway about Im wide. An eroded and fragmentary scarp, 0.35 m high, is all that remains of a concentric outwork;this may have been an outer bank or a glacis created from the ditch spoil.The ditch enclosed an area roughly 17 m in diameter; 2-3 m seem to have been lost to recent

143 K.S. Hodgson, Trans. Cumb. West. Ant. Arch. Soc.2 xliii (I943), 17o-172.144 C.U.C.A.P W89-9o.145 J.B.W. Day et al, Geology of the Country around Bewcastle (London, 1970), 74.

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NOTES 299

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300 NOTESthe platform does not appear to have been robbed to create the adjacent field wall; the prominentsurrounding ditch is not repeated at the Butt.In form this site is most readily comparable with the excavated watch-tower at Beattock Summit inClydesdale,149although Barron's Pike is roughly twice as large as the Scottish site. Beattock Summithad a very similar ground plan: an internal square platform of stone and clay had four squarepost-holes, one at each corner, to hold the timber uprights of a tower. Another closely analogous siteis the signal station at White Type (Dumfries District),149though it is still smaller than Barron's Pike:similar structural features have been recorded at certain of the towers on Gask Ridge in Perth andKinross.15?Indeed, stronger affinities exist between Barron's Pike and the Scottish free-standingtowers, all of which are timber-built,'57than those to the S in England. Two possible exceptions to thisgeneralisation may be Brackenber, one of the Appleby group of sites, and Roper Castle in theStainmore group.152 Both are of a similar size to Barron's Pike, although Brackenber is of a morecircular form than the sub-rectangular site of Roper Castle; both sites nevertheless suggest the use oftimber-built towers. A third site at The Punchbowl, North Stainmore,153resembles Barron's Pike indimensions and in plan, with an internal raised platform and concentric outwork; again a timbersuperstructure may be inferred. However, morphologically this type of site is not the norm; thestrongest parallels for Barron's Pike lie to the N in the frontier zones of Scotland.The recognition of the signal tower on Barron's Pike demonstrates the direct line of communicationbetween the outpost fort at Bewcastle and the Wall frontier. Richmond154 had considered thatmilitary communications along this line halted at the tower of Robin Hood's Butt 3.2 km to the SE ofthe fort. He argued that the former had functioned as a covert post on the S brow of Gillalees Beacon,invisible from the N, which relayed signals S along the line of the Maiden Way Roman road back toBirdoswald and the Wall. Barron's Pike, intervisible with both Robin Hood's Butt and Bewcastle,provided the capacity to communicate messages, albeit in some simplified form,155 between arelatively remote and isolated outpost fort and the major military presence on the Wall.The distances in this system from Bewcastle to Birdoswald are much greater than those between theGask Ridge watch-towers, but they are comparable with those between the Stainmore signal stations,a factor which reflects differing functions. Recent commentators have suggested that the Gask Ridgesites, varying between 760 m and 152o m apart, were too close together for efficient signaltransmission, and have suggested that their primaryfunction was as watch-towers designed to observeand control movement in the environs of the road along which they lay.156 Similarly the tower atBeattock Summit appears to have been located to survey the sinuous course of the Roman roadbetween Clydesdale and Annandale, as well as the mouth of the Greenhill gorge.157 By contrast,however, the Stainmore systems, which may be incomplete, appear to exhibit a greater capacity forlateral communication between towers and adjacent forts for distances of up to io km.158 Bycomparison the Birdoswald-Bewcastle system is not unusual in the distances between its relay points:Birdoswald to Robin Hood's Butt is the longest at 6.5 km; Robin Hood's Butt to Barron's Pike is 3.75km, and Barron's Pike to Bewcastle is 3.o km. Visibility along each of these would be quitestraightforward in most weather conditions.Royal Commission on the Historic Monuments of England, Line Building, The University, Newcastleupon Tyne, NEI 7RU.

148 G.S. Maxwell, Britannia vii (1976), 35.149 ibid., 36.150 A.S. Robertson, Trans. Perthshire Soc. of Natural Science, Special Issue (1973), 14-29.151 W.S. Hanson and G.S. Maxwell, Rome's North West Frontier The Antonine Wall (Edinburgh, 1983), 23.152 R.A.H. Farrar in W.S. Hanson and L.J.F. Keppie (eds.), Roman FrontierStudies 1979, Papers presented tothe I2th International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies, BAR Int. Ser. 71 (Oxford, 1980), 217-218, 220-224.153 ibid., 225-226.154 I.A. Richmond, Trans. Cumb. West. Ant. Arch. Soc.2. xxxiii (1933), 244.155 G.H. Donaldson, Arch. Ael.5 xiii (1985), 19-24.156 D.J. Breeze, The Northern Frontiersof Roman Britain (London, 1982), 61-62; Hanson and Maxwell, op. cit.

(note 15i), 44-157 Maxwell, op. cit. (note 148), 37.158 viz. between Brackenber tower and the fort at Brough; R.A.H. Farrar, op. cit. (note 152), 212.

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