Today the weather in Caernarfon was much improved. I woke up to sunny skies and a warm day. After a nice breakfast in my B&B and a relaxed morning, I headed out of the main part of Caernarfon, towards the Roman fort Segontium. The fort sits just outside the medieval part of Caernarfon on a slight rise near the Seiont River. From the position, the fort would have had views of most of the countryside and out towards the Menai Strait and Anglesey. Sadly for me, the visitor center at Segontium was closed, so I dove straight into the site.
The ruins are solely the foundations of the buildings in the fort and a few bits of the walls. This made it quite difficult to get a sense of the fort initially: just an expanse of low-lying stones. Also, with just a small pamphlet with a barebones information, it took me a few minutes of walking around to identify where I was with in the fort. But once I got the lay of the land, things fell into place. The majority of the structures were barracks for the Roman auxiliary troops stationed in Segontium. Based on the number and size of barracks, it seemed that the fort, if fully manned, would host around 1,000 soldiers. Other structures in the fort included storage buildings, troop headquarters, the commander's home, and a small bath complex.
The headquarters, part of which is shown above, contained the regimental shrine, offices, and a judgement hall. Not all of the foundations of the headquarters were visible. They disappear into a hedge and then into someone's (a very lucky someone) backyard. Sadly, this is true for a lot of the site; there are structures over parts of the fort and a major road leading into Caernarfon cuts right through the fort, even overlapping with the via principalis for a ways. It seemed that the room depicted above was a large, two-story hall, based on the slots in the floor to fit wooden columns. It also could have been some sort of porticoed entrance or meeting room to the headquarters. In a small room, towards one end of the headquarters, a strongroom had been added in the 3rd century CE.
I was struck by how large the commander's house was, especially in comparison to the headquarters. As I realized that I couldn't see the entire layout of the headquarters, I was less confused, but the commander's home still seemed far too large to be just a residence. There were many rooms of varying size and a large courtyard of the building. It seemed to be a building of quite importance. Segontium was the most important fort in northern Wales, acting to control the region in conjunction with other forts, like Chester. The size of the commander's house makes it seem like the fort would have also served a more administrative and political function in the area, possibly as way for the Romans to establish greater control over locals or establish more of a Roman population in the area.
According to my little pamphlet, there was a civilian home within the fort at one point. This seems odd to me, but I'm not certain of its abnormality. It did seem to fall into the idea that Segontium served a more political function, especially if the building was home to an official in the province or someone of such importance. The home was later converted into a bath complex, but not completed. This part of the fort was across the road leading into Caernarfon, surrounded by a wall and with a locked gate. Despite seeing multiple locals hop the wall or gate, I decided to not test my luck. I think there are things the Welsh locals can get away with more easily than an American tourist. I settled for walking around the remains of the walls of the fort. The site of the fort had been built up by the Romans and presumably a defensive ditch had also been dug around the fort. Along the wall remains, I came across the base of one of the towers in the wall. Along with this tower base, I was able to see the foundations of two of the four major gates of the fort. It was very cool to see how the gates perfectly aligned with the major Roman roads of the fort.
After wandering around the walls, I had seen what I could of the fort. Still in the mood to walk around, I headed to a church a few dozen feet away from Segontium. The church was closed, but the grounds were open so I walked around. The church was surrounded by a graveyard, but quite a unique one. I'm not sure why, if it was through lack of care or intentionally, but the entire graveyard was filled with wild grasses and flowers. It was quite amazing to see; the stones stood, but the land had been reclaimed by nature. It felt very appropriate for some reason. I loved the contrast of the fixed, unmoving tombstones in the fields of waving grasses and blossoming flowers.
I came back to Caernarfon for a nice, quick lunch and decided to explore the exterior of the castle more. Apparently, when it was originally constructed, the castle was banded with different colors (somewhat visible in the stones; look for a reddish tone) in a way similar to Roman forts. I crossed the swing bridge over the harbor (after I saw it open and close for a tour boat) and walked along the coast. I spent a relaxing while on a little, rocky beach skipping stones into the Menai Strait.
I walked lazily back, going along the promenade running alongside the Strait and the medieval walls. With not much left to explore, I headed back to my hotel. I had a relatively uninteresting afternoon. Caernarfon was my last reserved hotel, so the afternoon was spent trying to plan for the next coming days and running into many, many roadblocks. It seems like I now have plan for the coming days, but I will update as I go!
I had a relaxed dinner and managed to finish "The City and the Pillar," which continued to be an amazing read and I'm excited to have finished such a good book, but sad it's over! Hopefully I will continue to have good luck with books this summer!
Fun Fact #7: Gwynedd, the county in which Caernarfon is located, has the highest proportion of Welsh speakers in Wales. The Caernarfon area also has a noticeable and distinct dialect, that is supposedly hard for even the Welsh speakers to understand. I, who speaks and understands zero Welsh, was surprised to find that I could tell the Caernarfon dialect from other Welsh I've heard on this trip.
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