Chesters, known as Cilurnum during the Roman period, was a cavalry fort on Hadrian’s Wall near the village of Walwick in Northumberland. It was built in about AD 124 and was occupied until the Romans left Britain during the 5^th century. It housed an auxiliary unit of 500 cavalrymen. Auxiliary troops were those who were not citizens of Rome. The fort guarded Chesters Bridge.

The barracks consisted of two blocks facing each other across a central road with a drain down the centre. There were probably about ten rooms on each side, although only five are now visible. There were likely eight soldiers to a room, the rooms may have been divided using wooden partitions. There would have been a veranda in front of the rooms, some of the half columns the front of the veranda can still be seen leaning up against the rooms.

At the far end of the barracks was a larger house for the centurion in charge of each block.

During the early 19^th century, Nathaniel Clayton the owner of Chesters House and Estate covered over the remains of the fort with hundreds of tons of earth to create a landscaped parkland down to the River Tyne. Before doing so, he collected a number of Roman artefacts.

When his son, the noted antiquarian John Clayton, inherited the estate in 1832 he undid his father’s landscaping to expose the fort, excavate the ruins, and create a small museum for the discovered artefacts. John Clayton also made excavations at Housesteads Fort, Brocolitia Roman Temple, and Carvoran. He is credited as being responsible for saving much of the central portion of Hadrian’s Wall.

Chesters is the most complete Roman cavalry fort in Britain and is now open to the public under the care of English Heritage.

This photograph was taken by John Pattison Gibson (1838-1912), a photographer and archaeologist from Hexham. 

Gibson had a particular interest in Hadrian’s Wall, took part in several excavations, and used his photographs to document the findings between about 1890 and 1910. The photographs provide a unique record of the Wall and surrounding countryside at this time.

His first significant archaeological discovery was the Mucklebank Wall turret in 1891 which he happened upon thanks to a rabbit hole. He was involved in the excavation of the turret in 1892 and later he assisted in the excavations at Great Chesters from 1894-1896.

Between 1907-1908 he worked with Frank Gerald Simpson in excavating the small fort at Haltwhistle Burn and then once again in 1909, together with F.G. Simpson, he excavated Milecastle 48. The excavation report was published the following year and is one of the most important excavation reports published on a site on Hadrian’s Wall.

The Gibson Collection is housed at Northumberland Archives. Images from the collection can be viewed in the virtual exhibition Photographing the Roman Wall, then and now created in collaboration between Northumberland Archives and Northumberland Libraries as part of the Hadrian’s Wall 1900 Festival – a celebration of the 1900^th anniversary of the Wall.