On Friday, the day of return, I managed to fit in the visit to Chesters that I wasn’t able to when I travelled up. I found that I remembered next to nothing from when I visited as a child, beside the fact that there was a museum attached. It was a far more interesting site than I’d expected, as the barracks were different from those at Vindolanda - Chesters was a cavalry fort, and as such it was designed differently. On the other hand, the headquarters building was just the same, but better preserved than it is at Vindolanda. The only part of the site that I remembered was the bath house outside the fort. This was probably my favourite part of the visit, as the ruins weren’t very ruined at all, and it was easy to imagine how it would have looked - it was a rather strange experience seeing ruins so... well, unruined. |
Christopher N