Kasper Evers, phd fellow and former graduate from Lancaster University, tells the story of Britain’s most scenic Roman ruins.

OVER the heather the wet wind blows, I've lice in my tunic and a cold in my nose The rain comes pattering out of the sky, I'm a Wall soldier, I don't know why.’ So wrote British poet W. H. Auden in 1937 of a Roman soldier on Hadrian’s Wall, who had just about had enough of it.

However, life on the Wall – constructed ca. AD 122–28 – with its 10,000-man garrison, efficient supply network and infrastructure, must have been leisurely compared to that of the garrison at Hardknott Fort in Eskdale.

The fort was constructed ca. AD 117 to control Hardknott Pass, which dominated the road between the forts at Ambleside and Ravenglass. Accordingly, an auxiliary infantry cohort of 500 Dalmatians, from the coastal mountains of present-day Croatia, were stationed on this desolate, windswept plateau (the remoteness of which is likely to blame for the atypical lack of evidence for a civilian settlement) to represent the eagle-standards of the imperial legions.

The fort and the military road it kept open thus bisected the Lake District and made the policing and surveillance of recalcitrant or openly hostile native tribes feasible.

A contemporary writing-tablet from Vindolanda attests to such military intelligence-gathering and describes the military prowess of the local tribes with contempt: ‘the Britons are unprotected by armour. There are very many cavalry. The cavalry do not use swords, nor do the wretched Britons mount in order to throw javelins.’ However, that keeping the Celtic tribes subdued was no easy task after all is attested by inscriptions from Ambleside and Vindolanda: in Ambleside, a clerk was killed inside the fort itself, and at Vindolanda, a Roman centurion was killed in war around AD 120.

The well-preserved condition of Hardknott’s walls, towers, internal buildings and bath house belies its lifespan, though.

In fact, excavations have revealed that it was only occupied ca. AD 117–142 and again, after a 20-year hiatus, from AD 162 to the early 3rd century, while subsequent ‘littering’ attests to the site’s continued use as shelter for passing travellers and military patrols. Probably, a restraining military presence here was no longer needed.

Visitor information is available at: www.english-heritage.org.uk/hardknott