Watling Lodge

Beside Tamfourhill Road on the western edge of Falkirk, two lengths of the Antonine Wall's ditch run either side of a house called Watling Lodge. This is perhaps the best preserved stretch of the ditch anywhere, surviving almost to its original size, so it is easy to picture the frontier as the Romans built it from AD 140. The rampart changes here too, built of stacked turf to the west of the lodge and mainly of earth and clay to the east. The main Roman road north to Camelon crossed the Wall at this point, and a fortlet of about 30 soldiers, probably sent from Rough Castle, guarded the crossing where the lodge garden is now, though nothing of it is visible and the house and its grounds are private. Aerial photographs have revealed a Roman temporary camp in the field towards the Union Canal. The slopes of the ditch are steep, uneven and sometimes boggy. There is a small roadside parking area, information signs and a Roman-themed playground nearby.