A short walk around Ilkley's Roman Fort
In Ilkley remnants of the Roman Fort thought to have been Olicana, established in 79AD can be seen on the corner of Church Street and New Brook Street.
Below - Evidence of earthworks of the north east corner of the site.
Below - Map of the site today from Open Street Map. All Saints Church was built on the site of the Headquarters Building, the Principia. That would be around the centre of the fort which suggests the south gate would have been in what is now the car park on West Street. It would have been similar to some of the medium sized forts I visited on my Hadrian's Wall Walk such as Birdoswald, Great Chesters, Magna, Chesters and Segedunum
Below - A model of Arbeia Roman Fort at South Shields which I visited on Day 4 of my Hadrian's Wall Walk. It follows the usual playing card shape with the rounded off corners of the walls, North, East, South and West gates and the Principia in the centre. It is different to normal though as the example in the model was primarily a supply base so it has more granaries and fewer barracks blocks.
Below - A marker at the site of the North Gate. In the trees is the River Wharf.
Below - Information board in the fort site between All Saints Church and the site of the North Gate. (Click to enlarge)
Below - A bit of wall survives around the North West corner of the fort. Being in a populated area the stone was inevitably reused after the fort was abandoned to a greater extent than seen in the forts along the more rural locations of Hadrian's Wall. The remains of wall seen would have been the core of the wall, on the edges of the wall there would have been neat rows of faced stones.
The first fort here was abandoned around the time of Hadrian's Wall's construction as at the time the area was considered sufficiently Romanized and the resources were more needed at the empire's northern frontier. Relations with the Brigante tribe deteriorated though and the fort was reestablished.
Below - The section of wall at the North West of the fort looking towards the Manor House Museum.
The Ilkley Manor House Museum is set in a manor house dating from around 1390. It was built where barracks blocks of the Roman fort would have stood. The museum features items found at the fort site, though unfortunately the museum only opens at a weekend so I didn't visit it on this occasion.
Below - Another information board close to the surviving piece of wall.
Below - All Saints Church, built on the site of the fort's Principia.
Below - Inside the church are a series of 8th Century stone crosses that previously stood nearby and have been moved in to the church to protect them from erosion.
Below - Behind the crosses is some stonework from an earlier phase of the church, this reused stone from the Roman fort and remnants of Roman inscriptions could be seen on the stones.
Below - Information on the reused Roman stonework (click to enlarge)
I continued walking around the car park where I was hoping there might be a marker for the site of the south gate but couldn't see anything. The main shopping streets to the south of the car park would have been built on the site of the Viccus, the civilian settlement that would have grown up around the fort.
