south-east of these larger pits, in a pit ten or twelve feet deep and three or four feet in diameter.
The discoveries in the railway cutting led to no further investigations. Dr. Smith indeed collected from time to time, and contributed to the Society of Antiquaries, notes on any objects found upon the site. But such objects were few, and for more than half a century the memory of the buried altars, and a tradition of deep pits, in one of which there had been found a soldier standing upright with his spear, were all that remained to associate Newstead with the Romans. In 1904 Mr. Roberts of Drygrange, the owner of the ground, undertook some drainage operations in the field known as the Gutterflat, lying to the west of the Red Abbeystead. The drainers in their work cut through the foundations of a large building, and commenced to throw up from their trenches blackened soil, the remains of ruined hypocausts, mixed with fragments of tiles, mortar and pottery. A stone trough was also brought to the surface, as well as a number of earthenware water pipes of Roman make. The characteristic debris and the wall foundations suggested that systematic search might lead to valuable results. A proposal was made to the Council of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland that they should take the work in hand. The Society had just completed its excavation of the fort of Rough Castle on the Antonine Vallum, and it was agreed that Newstead should be next attacked. The work was accordingly commenced on 13th February, 1905.
Rediscovery of the Fort
At the outset there was little to serve as a guide to the excavators. Everything on the surface had long since been levelled by the plough. Nothing was known of the extent, or indeed of the nature, of the site about to be explored. Perhaps it was owing to the recent finds in the well at Bar Hill that attention was first directed to the field adjoining the Gutterflat, known as the Well Meadow. Possibly the well of this fort too, if it could but be found, might yield something to rival the strange series of columns from the other. Besides, the farm labourers told of great blocks of stone over which the ploughs grated, and there was Dr. Smith's evidence as to the discovery of a sculptured symbol of the Twentieth Legion here. A beginning was accordingly made by cutting a trench diagonally from west to east across the southern half of the Well Meadow. The ground turned out to be very wet, the trench filling with water as it was dug. Still, a few hours sufficed to show that underneath
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