Catermillie - Roman Remains or Shadow on the Land?

There is sometimes a temptation to see significance in ancient remains beyond their actual importance.  Hence the mania several hundred years ago to ascribe every bit of upstanding archaeological masonry a 'druidic temple'.  The antiquarian spirit is not quite dead yet and never will be as long as wishful thinking is alive.  I cite as example the story - possibly true - the story of the secret Roman road buried beneath Dundee.  A tale was circulated online anonymously a few years ago that there was a bona fide imperial causeway running beneath the cellars of the Arctic Bar in central Dundee. There was further speculation that it may in fact be medieval, if it exists at all.

   Catermillie  is the name of lands almost exactly on the south-westernmost section of the border between the counties of Perth and Angus, at Invergowrie. Local historians have the entrenched opinion that there was a Roman camp here.  The tradition is described as follows by the author of Historical Sketches of Fowlis Easter (pp. 20-21):

Running south from the centre of the village is a road leading to the Invergowrie Station, on the Scottish Central Railway, and to the village of Kingoodie; at the west end is a check-bar, on road leading north to join the Liff Road, which branches off at Invergowrie farm...The lands on the south and west of the Feus form the farms of Bullion and Mylnefield. They formerly were the property of the same family, and Bullion was then called also Catermillie; but since the division of the property one field on Mylnefield farm bears this name. Its origin is from the circumstance that, on these lands, the Romans at an early period formed a fortified camp for the accommodation of 4000 (quatuor millia) men; hence Cattermillie. The fosse and other vestiges of fortification have been swept away by agricultural improvement, and the memory of it is preserved only in history, and the ground plan of the estate.

   But was there actually a Roman presence - whether fortress or camp - here at all?  The author of the history of the parish of Longforgan confirms that, at the very end of the 19th century, there were no traces visible of the fort or camp.  The first record of the supposed military installation here was by William Maitland in History and Antiquities of Scotland (1757,vol. i. p. 215), who states the remains were clear in his day:

about half a mile benorth the estuary of Tay, is a Roman camp about two hundred yards square, fortified with a high rampart and a spacious ditch; but as the southern side appears to have been fenced with triple ramparts and ditches, these I take to have been the northern fortifications of the praetorium, the other sides being demolished by the plow, the vestigia appear but plainly. However, they are sufficient to show that this fortress was of a parallelogram form, about a quarter of a mile in length, which, from its vicinity to the Firth of Tay, I take to have been one of the camps which occasionally contained both the land and sea forces.

   Maitland was a man of Angus (a native of Brechin) and may have known about the remains from hearing locals speak of them.  The technicalities in Maitland's description have been examined by Gordon Mechan, who posed the pertinent question:  are these really Roman remains?  Difficult to say because agriculture was fast encroaching on the site even when Maitland wrote and any remains above ground had been obliterated by ploughing during the course of the next century.

Roman Remains, but meaning what?

Reading the landscape, the supposed fort at Invergowrie makes sense if it is considered that Invergowrie Bay was once an alluring landing place, rather than the silted up site it has become in modern times.  To the west, on the southern bank of the Tay, Carpow was a major Roman fortress, lynchpin in a series of forts and camps which cut deep into native territory, stretching north-east up Strathmore:  Cardean, Stracathro, and the rest. These forts were constructed during the Several campaign in Scotland, between 208 and 211 AD.  An advance base to support and supply these others would be appropriate here.  Gauld proposes a substantial base here, supporting Carpow and hosting provisions brought by sea from the northern campaign from the supply bases at South Shields.

The Name and its Significance

   Charter evidence gives the name as Kether-malyn, before 1292 and Katermalyn,before 1447.  It is later linked with Bullion:  as 'Bulzeon alias Katermalyn' in 1553, 'Bulzion or Catermille' in 1664, 'Bulzeon or Catermille' in 1694.  But what does the name mean?  Many authors have conjectured that it comes from Latin quator millia and signifies 'Camp of the four thousand'.  According again to Gordon Mechan this antiquarian theory originated with Principal Playfair of Edinburgh University. John Playfair (1748-1819), a mathematician and astronomer,  was in fact a local lad.  His father was minister of Benvie, only a mile or two away (and the most south-western parish in Angus).  His theory on the Roman origin for the name was advertised in James Knox's The Topography of the Basin of the Tay (Edinburgh, 1831, pp. 47-48):

we come to the Roman camp of Cater Milley, situated half a mile north of Invergowrie, and about two miles west from Dundee. This camp is now effaced; but it existed in the middle of the last century...Cater Milley, Principal Playfair conjectures to be Quatuor Millia; referring either to the distance from some other station, or to the number of troops it contained. But there is not any vestige, or tradition of another camp being within four miles of this neighbourhood; and, though the area of this station be somewhat greater than that of Orea, and double of that of the permanent camp at Ardoch, it could not, upon the Polybian system, hold 4000 men. Whatever may be the derivation of Cater Milley, there can be no doubt that this was the station, ad Tavum, near to, or upon the Tay. From a calculation made by General Roy, after comparing the dimensions of the different camps supposed to have been occupied by Agricola, during his last campaign in North Britain, he is of opinion, that the number of troops which the Roman commander sent on board the fleet, on returning from the territories of the Horestii, was about 4000. The calculations appear to be accurate; and, being founded upon data with which the General was familiar, there is reason to believe the soldiers sent on board the fleet might amount to that number; and as it is probable they embarked here, this station may derive the name, from the temporary camp of these troops being pitched on the spot where the permanent camp was afterward placed. The advantages of the situation, though still considerable, were probably much more so in the first and second centuries.

   That aside, neat though the suggestion is, what does the place-name really mean?  The first element is Gaelic cathair, which fits.  The second part may either be mileadh, warrior or meallan, knolls or
hillocks (remnants of decayed Roman buildings on the site).

The View From the Air and other Evidence

Although the remains at Catermillie have been utterly destroyed by farming the site of the fort, or the rounded angle of its corner was picked up by aerial reconnaissance and photographed firstly in December 1949.  This showed the location as not far south of the main Dundee-Perth road, on the track leading from the west of present day Bullionfield filling station to Mylnefield Farm. Further aerial surveying in 1990 seemed to confirm this. The only way that this could be shown to be a Roman fort or otherwise would be through archaeological excavation.  The only two bits of solid physical evidence found nearby to indicate an Imperial presence are two solitary coins.  One is a  follis of Maximinus II (Maximinus Daza), 308-314 A.D., minted at Alexandria in Egypt.  The other is of a similar date, a debased tetradrachma of Maximianus I, Herculeus, 286-310 A.D., also minted at Alexandria. What this means for the supposed Severan date of the site is unclear, though of course the two coins could have come from the personal treasure of a local Pictish worthy.

Works Consulted

Alexander Elliot, Lochee: As it Was and As It Is (Dundee, 1911).

W. W. Gauld, 'Roman activity in the Firth of Tay,' Journal of the Perthshire Society of Natural Science, XV (1987), pp. 25-30.

James Knox, The Topography of the Basin of the Tay (Edinburgh, 1831).

Gordon W. C. Mechan, 'Catermilly: a lost Roman fort near Invergowrie.  With notes on two recent finds of Roman coins, '  Aspects of Antiquity, Abertay Historical Society Publication No. 11 (1966), pp. 33-42.

Rev. Adam Philip, The Parish of Longforgan, a Sketch of its Church and People (Edinburgh and London, 1895).

Rev. James Stuart, Historical Sketches of the Church and Parish of Fowlis Easter (Dundee, 1865).