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Limited excavation was carried out at the end of the river spur to the south of Birdoswald Fort on Hadrian's Wall during October and November 1996. Erosion of the boulder clay scarp here had recently accelerated, and work was conducted in the context of the Hadrian's Wall Management Plan. The purpose of the excavation was to examine the state of survival of archaeological deposits in this area following the numerous and varied interventions of the 1930s, and to establish the underlying nature of the erosion to inform future mitigation and management.
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Results established that the pre-war excavation was (in today's terms) evaluative, and that the archaeology of the spur was mostly intact. The 1930s interpretative plan was found to be incomplete, and a third primary fort ditch was discovered. Information concerning the relationship between the stone fort and the Vallum of Hadrian's Wall was enhanced by the recovery of dating evidence. The most significant new archaeological discovery was an apparently Neolithic burial cist which was almost certainly discovered and robbed when the site was cleared in the early-second century AD. The accelerated erosion was shown to be caused by water penetration into fissures in the underlying boulder clay which include the intrusive ditches of the fort and Vallum, as well as other archaeological features. This discovery will enable Cumbria County Council to establish a monitoring regime to measure loss and to enable the formulation of a carefully considered archaeological solution to this problem. Throughout the project close liaison with Cumbria County Council staff at Birdoswald allowed the excavation to become an important aspect of educational visits made to the fort by school groups.