The Carlyle Farm and Dwelling at Birrens. 165 



more than the probable site of this ancestral cottage be traced." 

 This is hardly correct, as the site of the cottage lay, as before 

 stated, at the south end of the Fort. In the course of carrying 

 out the exploratory works alluded to the writer was able to dis- 

 cover traces of the foundations, and in General Roy's time, 

 about 1750, the buildings existed, and are shown in block on 

 his plan of the station. Roy mentions also that the house was 

 known by the name of Birrens. This little farm would extend 

 to 10 or 12 acres of good grassy pasture land, overlying the 

 ruins of the old Roman Station in Middlebie. 



Agricola's Well at Birrenswark Hill. 



From manv a distant .standpoint one's eye, travelling over 

 variously cultivated or pasture lands, is attracted and rests on a 

 hill of peculiar form in the district of Lower Annandale, known 

 as Birrenswark Hill. Seen from afar, it also commands exten- 

 sive prospects, the shores of Liverpool on the one hand, the 

 hills beyond Moffat on the other, and wide circuits in other 

 directions. On nearer approach the hill is seen to be detached 

 a good way on all sides, to rise up from comparatively level 

 ground, steep, almost unclimbable, crowned with a long narrow 

 oval-shaped tabular top ; treeless, but covered everywhere with 

 richly tinted verdure. Nature has excellently moulded her part, 

 and the hill is beautiful in form and finish. Art adds to its 

 wonders j the tabular top is encircled with double ramparts, in 

 which there are several gates ; spreading around the base a great 

 fortified camp lies on the north side, another more formidable 

 flanks the hill on the south, showing three of its gates protected 

 by notable earthen towers. Subsidiary works stretch to the west 

 and to the east, and a rampart and ditch circumvalation embraces 

 military remains covering an area of something like one hundred 

 acres, which mainly, with the exception of the natural detritus 

 from, the ramparts and corresponding silting of the ditches, con- 

 tinue not greatlv defaced as compared with the condition in which 

 they were left by the Romans. 



Many intere.sting details may be gathered, but here only one 

 will be noticed, viz., the water supply, about which the Romans 

 were exacting. A'itruvius dedicated to Augustus Caisar his book 

 on Architecture in ten chapters, one of which is devoted to water 

 supply. Treating the subject generally, he says: — "Divine Pro- 



