Unfortunately the 2013 excavation season is fully booked, but excavations will be continuing in 2014. For those who are interested in excavating here next year, applications open on the website on 1 November 2013, and it is advised that you apply quickly – all places were full within an hour for this year’s dig! Minimum age is 16 and under-18s must be accompanied by an adult. No previous experience is necessary.
This year’s excavations at Vindolanda see the start of a new 5-year excavation programme. The ‘frontiers in transition’ archaeological research project covers three centuries of occupation at the site and examines how the earliest 1st-century ‘conquest’ period of Vindolanda changed into a series of successive new frontiers: the Stanegate road followed by Hadrian’s Wall. The project also considers the frontier in its most settled period of the 3rd century and examines in detail the wider societal conditions of a frontier community in this period. Visitors are welcome to observe excavations at any time.
REALLY GOOD, WELCOMING, INTERESTING SITE
Really historically significant and impressive site, with lots to be found. beginner’s very welcome. site leaders are welcoming and know the site very thoroughly. £50 for 2 weeks – very good value.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Would you recommend it? Yes
What is your top bit of advice? Pack for all weather!! The nearest Youth Hostel and B&B within walking distance that they recommend are ok, but not great: there are some nicer B&Bs, and campsites around apparently if you have a car and don’t mind driving a short distance.
VISITING VINDOLANDA
Vindolanda, otherwise known as Chesterholm, is one of the forts that is not on Hadrian’s Wall itself, but which lies in the valley behind it where the main Roman road known as the Stanegate runs. It is today best known for the remarkable wooden writing tablets that have been discovered there.
Vindolanda is not owned or run by English Heritage but by the Vindolanda Trust and the remarkable Birley family. In the 1930s, Chesterholm and the adjacent fort was owned by Eric Birley who subsequently became Professor of Archaeology at Durham and one of the leading archaeologists on the Wall. Ownership then passed to a Trust but work was continued by his two sons Robin and Tony. It was Robin who made the remarkable discovery of wooden writing tablets, preserved deep down in waterlogged deposits in abandoned early forts, dating to the early years of the second century AD, before Hadrian’s Wall itself was built. These were subsequently sold to the British Museum in order to pay for the excavations, but replicas can be seen in the site museum.
Vindolanda is remarkable in that not only can the fort itself be seen but also the very extensive vicus, or civilian settlement – the most extensive vicus building to be seen in this country. The site today is approached through the new car park which leads in to the vicus. The vicus itself is laid out at an angle to the main stone fort, but this is because it was aligned on an earlier timber fort that has now vanished. Note that most of the buildings are strip buildings, long narrow buildings, end onto the road, where the front part facing the road would have been a shop, and the rear part workrooms and living accommodation. To one side of the vicus a short modern replica of Hadrian’s Wall has been constructed.
In the fort itself most of the walls have been uncovered and also the headquarters building at the centre. To one (eastern) side the commanding officer’s house has now been uncovered with a small possible Christian church constructed in the courtyard in the sub-Roman period. On the western side, adjacent to the vicus, current (2009) excavations are revealing the granaries.
Two bath houses are known, the original one in the vicus and a recently discovered one outside the southern gate.
Beyond the fort (on the opposite side to the vicus) a steep path leads down to Chesterholm, the original house, now a museum and work rooms, a good shop and luscious tea rooms. In the gardens of the house are some reconstructed buildings including a temple and a sculpture gallery. The original car park, still available for the disabled, lies beyond the house.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Would you recommend it? Yes