Lunt Roman Fort

En un regard

Le château en bref

The Roman fort of The Lunt, at Baginton, south of Coventry, is an earth-and-timber military post founded in the 1st century AD, part of which has been reconstructed at full scale. It is not a medieval castle but a Roman army camp, and today one of the few sites in England where visitors can walk along a rampart and pass through a reconstructed gateway. Excavated from the 1960s onwards by Coventry's museums service, the site has revealed a complex layout marked by several phases. Its most unusual feature is the gyrus, a large circular enclosure some thirty metres in diameter, interpreted as an arena for training horses and with no known equivalent anywhere in the Roman world. Together with stables and horse harness, it suggests the presence of a substantial cavalry contingent. The reconstructions carried out by the Royal Engineers in the late 1960s and early 1970s include a stretch of rampart, the east gate modelled on Trajan's Column, and a granary that houses the interpretation museum. The site opens on certain dates, particularly during school holidays, with activities and re-enactors.