Dr. Francis McIntosh

There is no catering unit.

If you think of a film set or if you think of a modern day army, there's no catering core.

So they would be feeding themselves from rations and they wouldn't be getting the equivalent of ready meal.

They don't even get flour.

They get given grain.

So we imagine...

that the three men, or maybe they neighbour with the next three next door, they're working together.

There's been a fair bit of work done.

Alex Croom has worked out how long it would take to grind enough grain for one person's daily, and it's about half an hour.

So you're having to grind for half an hour to make yourself enough flour to make either bread or a cake or, you know, some sort of pottage or things.

And so they think that in an infantry unit where it's eight men,

Yep.

So we see quite often quern stones.

So the small stones that you use to grind your grain, you know, they're found often in barrack rooms, particularly at Chester's.

There's bread ovens built into the walls of the fort.

So if you think of the fort, it's a playing card shape.

All your buildings are inside, but there's always a bit of a gap around the edge, you know, a space for people to walk around.

And on the interior wall of the fort wall, there's bread ovens.

You know, you'd have them further away because...

Initially, barracks might be made of wood, but even if they're mostly of stone, you don't want anything burning nearby.