Qualla: Caerleon Roman Fortress and Baths

Caerleon Roman Fortress and Baths: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pwimageglow (talk), Public domain. When Gerald of Wales rode through Caerleon in 1188, recruiting men for the Third Crusade, the ruins were so vast he wrote them down. He saw immense palaces, a tower of prodigious size, hot baths, the relics of temples and theatres - all inside walls that still stood high. Underground passages ran beneath the streets. Heating stoves built into the walls transmitted hot air through narrow clay tubes. "Caer-leon," he wrote, "means the city of legions, for there the Roman legions, sent into this island, were accustomed to winter." Much of what he described would be demolished or buried in the centuries that followed. The vast stone bathhouse was destroyed in the 13th century, probably for its building materials. But Caerleon refused to disappear. Today it remains one of only three permanent legionary fortresses from Roman Britain - and the one where most has survived.

Image: Pwimageglow (talk) | Public domain

Caerleon Roman Fortress and Baths: Isca Augusta, AD 75

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chatsam, CC BY-SA 3.0. Rome reached the south-east coast of Britain in AD 43. Thirty-two years later, with the Silures of South Wales finally subdued, the Second Augustan Legion built a permanent fortress on the west bank of the River Usk where it met the Severn Estuary. They called it Isca Augusta - I...

Image: Chatsam | CC BY-SA 3.0

Caerleon Roman Fortress and Baths: The Bath House and the Soldiers Who Used It

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michael Garlick, CC BY-SA 2.0. The fortress bath house was probably the only stone building in the original AD 75 fortress, which was otherwise constructed of timber. It was the principal baths for the legion - thousands of men, day after day, working through a sequence of cold, warm, and hot rooms. Excavated ...

Image: Michael Garlick | CC BY-SA 2.0

Caerleon Roman Fortress and Baths: The Amphitheatre and the Round Table

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pwimageglow (talk), Public domain. Just outside the fortress wall sits the most complete excavated Roman amphitheatre in Britain. It held perhaps 6,000 spectators - roughly one for each soldier of the Second Augustan Legion - and would have been used for military training and ceremonies as well as gladiatorial con...

Image: Pwimageglow (talk) | Public domain

Caerleon Roman Fortress and Baths: Antiquarians and the First Welsh Museum

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ham, CC BY-SA 3.0. The modern story of Caerleon's archaeology begins in October 1847, when local antiquarians founded the Caerleon Antiquarian Association with twin aims: to dig, and to build a museum. The first secretary, John Edward Lee, had already started excavating an extramural bath house alo...

Image: Ham | CC BY-SA 3.0

Caerleon Roman Fortress and Baths: What 21st-Century Geophysics Found

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alun Salt from Radnorshire, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0. From 2007 to 2010, Andrew Gardner of University College London and Peter Guest of Cardiff University excavated Priory Field in the south-west corner of the fortress. They uncovered a large square building that collapsed or was demolished around AD 350 - and dug out thousands of f...

Image: Alun Salt from Radnorshire, UK | CC BY-SA 2.0