Lunt Fort was built by the Romans in 60AD.  It was used as a horse training centre by the Romans.

 

The man who built the fort was the Roman Govenor of Britain, his name was Suetonious Paullinus.  The Roman Governor built the fort because he was fighting battles with Queen Boudica from East Anglia and the Welsh people in North Wales.  Warwickshire is in the middle of the country and he thought it would be a good place to build a fort so he could control his two armies.   The Romans lived at Lunt for 20 years from 60AD to 80AD they then abandoned it for 180 years before it was rebuilt.

 

Nobody in Lunt knew about the Fort until the 1930's when some Roman pottery was found.  Archaeologists excavated the Fort, and some of it has been re-built to show us how it looked when the Romans lived there.

 

Lunt Fort has ditches all around it.  In the ditches were small holes big enough for a foot.  If the Celts fell in the ditch first they would break their foot and if they survived that they would have to climb up a wall with nettles growing up it.  If they got up the wall they would be stabbed !  

 

The headquarters was the main building.  The money was kept in the headquarters and no one could get the money because the Standards were on the money.  Only the Standard Bearers could touch the Standard.  If you touched the Standards and you were not a Standard Bearer you would be killed.  Romans were famous for marching, half the Roman army were foot soldiers, a quarter of the Roman army were horse soldiers.

 

Harry Croasdale 3A

 

When we got there we went in a building called a granary. A man called Rob showed us how a Roman would be dressed for battle. He put the clothes on Edward James. We thought he looked funny because they were too small on him. We saw a Roman catapult called a wild donkey because it had a kick when it fired off rocks. There was also a catapult called a scorpion catapult because it could fire darts for about 20 metres.

 

Then we went to a big square hole in the ground which would have been the cellar of the Commander’s House. It was full of water but when the Romans were there it would have had a trap door which would lead down to where the standards and money were kept. Then we went to a ruin where the barracks would have been. They were in rows and they were very small but they were even smaller when you knew that 8 soldiers would have slept in each one. After that we went to the gyrus where the Romans would have trained their horses. Lunt Fort was the only fort in Britain that had a gyrus, because castles had gyruses but not usually forts.

 

Then we went back into the granary where we started to shop. I bought a golden pendant with a ruby in the middle. I think it is a ruby. We then went back to the bus and drove back to School. Everyone was very grumpy when we arrived because we were tired, but in our heads we were thinking about our trip, which we liked very much.

 

Tobias Schroder 3A 

On the 19^th October Year 3 went to Lunt Fort, which is a Roman fort near Coventry. On the coach me and Piers (my friend) played Top Trumps and some other games. The journey took an hour and a half (it was shorter on the way back).

 

When we got there we went to a building that used to be a granary. A guide called Rob told us about foot and horse back soldiers and showed us some armour and weapons. After that we went back to the coach for lunch then we played Romans and Celts for a minute before we went back and had a tour outside. A lady called Barbara took us around outside and we went into a round training ring which had wood around the side. This is where horses were trained and was the only one in England, Scotland and Wales so a lot of horses were trained there every day.

 

The money was kept in an under ground pit with the standards on top of the money box so the general had to get the standard bearers to move the standards.  We saw where the soldiers slept - the legionary and other leaders had bigger rooms than the soldiers. Eight soldiers shared a room but there were only six beds because two soldiers from each set of eight soldiers were always on guard. They had three hour shifts at night and they didn’t have their own bunks so the soldiers who had just come in hoped that the soldiers before them hadn’t been dirty!

 

It was a great trip I think next year’s Year 3’s should go!