Page:VCH Derbyshire 1.djvu/260

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Presumed original masonry alterations Inferred FEET O 10 20 vnnn A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE quarters, or, as it is often (not perhaps correctly) styled, Praetorium. This was a square or oblong structure, varying in size in various forts : a small specimen might measure 70 by 80 feet, and a large one 140 by 1 80 feet. As an important edifice, it was built almost invariably of stone. Its entrance, or at least its chief entrance, was in the middle of one side, usually one of the shorter sides. Through it the visitor reached first an open yard encircled by a cloister, and then an inner and smaller yard. 1 Behind this, at the back of the whole structure, was a row of I POOR some five rooms looking out on to the inner court. The middle room was the shrine where the standards of the regiment were preserved, where the gods of the army were officially wor- shipped, and where the military chest was kept in a sunk strong box or cellar. The other rooms, which usually have heat- ing apparatus of one sort FIG. 6. HEADQUARTERS BUILDING AT HOUSESTEADS. or another Were appar- (The part shaded was roofed.) ently offices f Or clerks and, occasionally, store-rooms for weapons. Such is the general scheme, but the details naturally vary slightly between fort and fort and between province and province. In particular we seem able to distinguish two types of headquarters, a simpler one in which the division between the two courts is made merely by an arcade or wall, and a more elaborate one in which a roofed passage intervenes. It is possible, though it cannot be called certain, that the simpler is the earlier type. See figs. 5 and 6. Close to the headquarters stood other important buildings, usually of stone. Two of these are constant features the officers' quarters, a residential structure comfortably fitted with hypocausts and sometimes 1 Some archaeologists have thought that the inner yard was roofed and resembled a large hall. So Constantin Koenen in his account of Novaesium (Banner Jahrbiicher, in, 112 : 1904), and Ward in his account of Gellygaer (Cardiff Naturalists' Soc. xrxv. 1903). But Koenen's plans do not seem to me to justify his conclusion, and for Gellygaer I may refer to my note in Mr. Ward's report, p. 56. IQ8