REPORT OF MEETINGS FOR 1902 245 



Wales, rector of the Grammar School of Kelso, who died 

 the 9th day of February 1793." And now we climb a grassy 

 slope beyond the church and reach the camp, which, forming 

 the centre of one of the finest hill landscapes in Scotland, 

 covers a small plateau of some twelve or thirteen acres; and 

 here we listen to the most interesting account of it which 

 Mr Thomas Eoss, of Edinburgh, so kindly came to give 

 us. 



Roman Camp at Lyne. 



Its position, buried as it is among the lofty Peeblesshire 

 hills, seems at first sight inexplicable, but the key is probably 

 to be found in the fact that it commands the valley or path 

 of communication connecting the two highways or routes by 

 which invading armies have always entered Scotland, the 

 one on the east by Berwick and the Lothians, and the other 

 on the west by Carlisle and Lanarkshire. This valley is thus 

 a link connecting the two main routes of armies penetrating 

 northwards into Scotland. It is a fair inference, therefore, 

 that the object of the Romans was to protect this important 

 connection ; and it is noteworthy that these connecting roads, 

 although running through a hill country, encounter no high 

 pass, and have such easy gradients that they are favourite 

 cycling routes at the present day. Excavations were recently 

 made, in the autumn or 1900, with the definite purpose of 

 settling the vexed question whether Lyne was really a Roman 

 Camp at all, no relies of undoubted Roman origin having 

 been discovered there previously. 



The camp lies four miles due west of Peebles, and 300 

 yards west of Lyne Kirk, 700 feet above the sea, upon a 

 plateau 100 feet above Lyne water, which is separated from 

 the steep western and southern flanks of the plateau by a 

 haugh or river-flat, not exceeding 100 yards in width. [See 

 plan.] On the opposite side of the river the bank rises at 

 once very steeply, and is so high that the station is commanded 

 from the gentle hill slopes beyond, but at too great a distance 

 to be annoyed by primitive missiles. 



The site was admirably chosen for its natural strength. 

 The south and west sides were amply protected by the steep 



