There is some speculation abounding about Roman presence in the Baillieston area. It is time to clearly lay open the facts - such as they are known - and to relay the opinion of experienced antiquaries and modern day archaeologists on the wider territorial aspects of the subject and of what we can reasonably interpret known information to the locality .
Around the year AD 79, Agricola the new Roman governor of Britain marched up the east coast of Scotland with an army of legionaires and led his army as far as the Tay. In AD 81 he fortified a line between the the Clyde and Forth rivers, which included a fortlet at Mollins, just 8 miles north of present day Baillieston. After defeating the tribes of what we now call Scotland at the battle of Mons Graupius in AD 84, the legions withdrew south to the Cheviots in about AD 86/87, destroying their forts and fortlets as they did so.
In about AD 140, another governor, Lollius Urbicus, invaded, building roads and forts as he came north. In about AD 142 he ordered the building of what we know as the Antonine Wall across the isthmus between the Clyde and Forth estuaries.
What concerns us here is the road that the legions used to access the western part of this wall. It ran north from Carlisle across the southern uplands and then basically following the route of the Clyde to Castledykes and carrying on in a north westerly direction.
A Bartholomew map depicting the Roman walls and the road running from the south.
The western route is then said to have run to the South Calder Water at the present Strathclyde Park, where a single arch bridge of apparent ancient date (allegedly the original Roman one) still stands. There is also the excavated Roman bath-house a short distance from this bridge and in the vicinity is definite evidence of a fort. The Gazeteer for Scotland records it thus;
Bothwellhaugh Roman Fort
"Located in Strathclyde Country Park, immediately to the west of present-day Motherwell, are traces of a 2nd C. Roman fort. This comprised a turf and clay rampart, exceeding 7m (23 feet) in thickness, inside a system of ditches, which enclosed a area of 1.8 ha (4.5 acres). Thought to be the base for 500 Roman troops, a day's march south of the Antonine Wall, the fort is thought to have been occupied between approximately 142 AD and 162 AD. The site was subject to an excavation in 1967-8."
The Roman bath house at Bothwellhaugh
From there, the road is thought to have run on an axis toward the high ground near Bellshill and westerly along the line of the present road leading from Bellshill to Calerbraes golf course on the eastern side of the North Calder Water. In fact the street that runs in line with this road in the Birkenshaw area is called Watling Street. Sounds nice and obviously alludes to the old Roman road but whoever dreamed up the connection was way off the mark as Watling Street actually originates in Dover and ran via Canterbury to London and onwards to near Shrewsbury in England!
Old Ordnance Survey maps are marked with a short line of this road running across the golf course and the following aeriel photo supplied to this site appears to confirm such as shown by the unmistakeable line running across the fairway. However it should be pointed out that to my knowledge this road has never been subject to an excavation by archaeologists and therefore there is still a lack of difinitive proof of even this generally accepted fact.
Calderbraes golf course in middle of photo beyond boundary and before treelined banks of the Calder. The line of the Roman road is assumed to have run west (from left) at the top left hand corner of the course. photo courtesy of Mr. Joe McRanor
After this point the exact line of the road becomes prone to much speculation.
George Chalmers, a noted 19th.century antiquarian and one of the few to tackle this particular matter, wrote;
"The Roman road passed thence along the height to the southward of Bellshill, and must have crossed the West Calder Water not far above its conflux with the Clyde. Between this and Glasgow some traces of it were lately seen, particularly a little eastward of Tollcross"
The 'West' Calder meaning the North Calder of course and 'lately' must have referred to sometime before 1807 when Chalmers wrote this.
Having studied the topography of the Calder in this area in many walks along the banks and observations from the bridges crossing the river around these parts I am convinced that there is only one fording point on the river in that stretch that would have provided the topographical conditions to greatest advantage required by an army as sophisticated as the Roman one.
For the road to continue in its straight line route - as the Roman engineers mostly preferred (although it should be noted that they always deviated from this rule when the terrain demanded) it would have had to ford the river at the position of the present Old Edinburgh road. A place that would have involved steep ascents on both banks and not very conducive to troops wearing heavy armour or cart traffic. More importantly the river bed here is soft mud and silt with only a length of a few metres being bedrock, and this is not flat but is undulating with sharp broken points. It is not a suitable fording point and it is also doubtful whether a bridge would have been practical here either due to the afore mentioned steep banks.
Heading south, the river bed for the next 100 metres or so reverts back to a bed of mud and silt with continued steep banks on both the eastern and western sides (though I'm not certain that these are totally natural) until the Telford Bridge (1836) is reached. Just before this and for a few metres downstream is - in my opinion - the natural fording point. It is here that in non-spate periods the river is only ankle deep and the bedrock is totally flat - almost like a man-made road. There is no doubt that the steep banks here are unatural and are the result of the Telford bridge being built there and later earthworks associated with building the M74 motorway.
The Calder at Roundknowe just north of the Telford bridge. The river bed can be seen in this photo.
At or near these bridges would have been the most practical point to ford the river.
So it is probable that from the heights of the present Calderbraes the road took a rather abrupt turn towards the south to ford the Calder. Was there anything else of note in the area? The highly respected Lawrence Keppie suggests that;
"some camps and even a fortlet might be looked for at the crossing of the North Calder Water, but the ground has been built over, or much disturbed."
After crossing the river the exact route is unknown and can only be speculated on by using reasonable deduction. Chalmers uses logic in surmising the likely axis, and so, it probably followed the route of the present Hamilton road through Broomhouse and from there to Tollcross via the same. The alternative north and south routes don't stand up to any logic. One, the Burntbroom/Mount Vernon option would have involved marching uphill - to no seemingly practical advantage, and the other, crossing the difficult sandhills bordering the Clyde - the present landfill and sand quarry sites of Patterson's of Greenoakhill. Neither would be a very logical scenario.
Apart from marching along this road, was there any other Roman activity in this area?
