The Background

Our knowledge of the Roman fort at Chester-le-Street, both its layout and its history, has always been fairly sparse, partly an inevitable result of its lying beneath a modern town. However, a few basic facts are known, and these will serve as a background to this brief account of the 1990-1 excavations in Church Chare. Modern scholarly opinion holds that the Roman name for Chester-le-Street was probably Concangis (and not, as was long thought, Concangium). The name (which is Celtic, rather than Roman, in origin) is thought to have meant something like 'the horse people'.

An inscription of A.D.216 (now in the Anker House) is our first datable record of the fort's garrison, recording building work by an unknown auxiliary cavalry unit on a bath-house and aqueduct. Construction work by the 2nd Legion ( legio II Augusta ) at some time may also be indicated by a building stone, now missing (although a woodcut illustration survives). Then, in the Notitia Dignitatum (a list of the army units of the Later Empire), there is reference to a unit called the numerus vigilum Concangiensium.

Finds of decorated and inscribed stones in the 19th century gave further clues to the presence of the Roman base, and excavations during the 20th century began to reveal structures related to the fort. Work since the second world war has provided various details that contributed towards the overall picture, but it was not until the excavations in Middle Chare, in 1978, that not only a large area was opened for examination, but also some idea of the chronology and development of the site could be formed. The extent of the fort is now known with some degree of confidence and an impression of the area of the extramural civilian settlement has also been built up.

Situated on a high bluff, overlooking the valleys of the Wear to the east and the Cong Burn to the north, the fort is in the sort of position frequently favoured by Roman military surveyors. The road north to Newcastle (Pons Aelius ) passes just to the west of the fort, so traffic along it could be easily monitored by the troops stationed nearby. This, then, is the broad outline of our knowledge of the Roman fort at Chester-le-Street and it is against this background that the most recent campaign of excavations sought to refine some of the details and increase our otherwise hazy understanding of the site.

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