Piercebridge Roman Fort
Built in 260AD to control the Tyne crossing, but there is no trace of an earlier fort, which seems unlikely.
Piercebridge Roman Fort
After the accession of Vespasian in 69AD, Cerialis was appointed governor of Britain and the conquest of the Brigantes was begun. The Brigantes tribe covered most of North, with the exception of Cumbria. The first step in conquest was to place forts at strategic locations and Piercebridge was where Dere St crossed the Tees
It is therefore assumed that a fort was built there in the early 70s, but no evidence has been found. Up the road at Binchester covering the River Wear, a fort was built. Dere St was the road from York (legionary headquarters from 71AD) to Corbridge and then into Scotland. How long the occupation took is difficult to say, but it was some decades before the word pacified would have any meaning.
If Piercebridge Roman Fort was Morbium, which is recorded in the Notitia Dignitatum (a late 4th- or early 5th-century list of officials and army units in the Roman Empire) then probably during the mid-4th century the fort was garrisoned by a unit of Roman ancillary heavy cavalry, the Praefectus equitatum catafractariorum.
There were few new forts built in this period and it interesting that at Binchester, 12 miles north, there was another cavalry unit. At this time Britain was part of the breakaway Gallic Empire.
PIERCEBRIDGE 3rd-century-fort
After Septimius ‘s campaign in Scotland in the early 3rd century, the troops used in the campaign were diverted to rebuild the forts and infrastructure throughout North England and at Piercebridge, this included a new bridge across the River Tees and a new base of some kind.
The interior of the fort is different from the Wall forts, with the commander’s house situated in south east corner of the fort, similar to the South Shields Fort. Much of the fort now lies beneath later buildings, in fact, the whole village was built in the fort.
The Commandant’s House
PIERCEBRIDGE COMMANDANTS-HOUSE-DIAGRAM
This base which included a courtyard building and bathhouse was later incorporated into a fort that was built here in 260AD. The courtyard building was probably enlarged around this time and lived in by the commandant. You can see the remains of the east wing. It had four wings arranged around a courtyard.
Each wing contained several rooms many lavishly equipped with under-floor heating systems. It was especially large and probably larger than the equivalent house in South Shields.
COMMANDANTS-HOUSE -FROM NORTH – SOUTH
East gate
North of the Courtyard House is the Eastgate facing Dere St and probably the most important of the fort’s four gates. In front of the gate was a serious array of ditches, which are still visible.
PIERCEBRIDGE EASTGATE–DITCHES
Excavations in the 1970s, concentrated near the east gate, revealed part of the wall and ditches surrounding the fort, as well as the road that ran around the perimeter inside the defences. Within the fort a large culvert.
Also visible is the north-east corner of the fort and the fort latrine within it.
Civil Settlement
To the east of the site over the wall the civil settlement grow up near Dene St from around 100AD, because traders and merchants were attracted to the location on a main road near a river crossing. It expanded around 200/220AD when the timber bridge across the river was replaced by a new one further downstream.
Buildings sprang up alongside the diversion road on both sides of the Tees and after the visible fort was built in 260AD the settlement thrived with local soldiers spending their money on goods and services provided there. Interestingly it was about this time that the settlements on the Wall started to decline.
The Bridges
2nd Roman Bridge 2nd Century
There were two Roman bridges near Piercebridge Roman fort. The first lay on the original line of Dere Street crossing the grounds of the George Hotel as can be seen in the diagram above. The evidence for this takes the form of timber piles in the river. These probably supported an entirely timber bridge that seems to have gone out of use near the end of the 2nd century. Before the construction of the Cow Green Reservoir in 1967–71 in Upper Teesdale the Tees was known for its fierce floods, and it may have been one of these that washed the bridge away, as happened to the Tyne bridges.
The second bridge was built with stone piers 180 meters downstream from its predecessor.( see above diagram) Its construction necessitated a diversion of Dere Street. It lies on the floodplain of the river and would not have been subject to such intense flooding as the first bridge, which crossed the narrow channel further west.
Finds of pottery associated with buildings along the rerouted southern approach road suggest that the bridge was probably built around the beginning of the 3rd century. It may have remained in use into the medieval period, possibly until the present bridge was constructed in about 1500.
See Time Teams investigation of the bridge