at Corbridge-on-Tyne.[1] At one end were two small chambers, one of which, with a hypocausted floor, was perhaps an office for the tabularius horrei, while the floor of the main building was covered with burnt grain, showing the purpose for which it had been used. A human skeleton was found here too. It should be added the term horreum occurs in several inscriptions. Thus at Corbridge one of these buildings contained an altar crected by an officer who styles himself praepositus curam agens horrei that is, 'special superintendent of a granary.'[2] At Aesica on the wall of Hadrian we have a record of the rebuilding of a horreum by the garrison in 225 A.D., and at Niederbiber there is a dedication by a numerus of Britons to the genius of the horreum.
The Commandant's House
While none of the buildings dealt with so far would appear to have been constructed to serve as dwellings, the block which adjoins them on the south has the unmistakable characteristics of a dwelling-house. Parallels to can be found difficulty not in the but in towns it without only forts, such as Caerwent and Silchester. It lies between the south buttressed building and the south gate. We find a building resembling it in a similar position at Housesteads and at Lyne, and probably also at Birrens, Castlecary, Camelon, and Rough Castle, while at Gellygaer the corresponding building lies immediately to the north of the Principia. At Newstead the house was almost square, occupying a space of 130 feet in breadth by 122 feet in depth. The main entrance was from the Via Principalis by a passage eight feet wide. This passage gave access to a corridor which ran all round the house, enclosing an open court which formed the centre. On the outer side of the corridor were the doors of the various apartments. Its inner side directly adjoined the court, except at the west end, where an apsed room with two small wings projected beyond it into the enclosure.
Here, as everywhere in the fort, the walls had been reduced almost to their footings, and the floors and the sills of the doorways had all disappeared. It was possible, however, from the jambs to trace three entrances from the corridor into the central court, as well as the doorways of the entrance passage. At the south-east corner of the courtyard, close to one of the entrances from the corridor, lay a large slab of yellow sandstone, six and a half feet by three and a half feet. It had grooves roughly cut in it, and might have formed the base of a cistern. In the wall beside it was an opening for a drain,
1 Archaeologia Aeliana, 3rd series, vol. v. p. 6.
2 Ibid. p. 91.
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