Dr. Francis McIntosh

At turrets, we think they're just there for the day and then swap out.

Maybe you are going to escort a grain shipment into the fort or out of the fort if it's going somewhere else.

Maybe you've been sent to escort a governor who's come in to visit.

I think it depends what's going on in the area, doesn't it?

You know, there's also going to be patrol duties, you know, just going to check that no one south or north of the wall is causing any trouble.

Presence and visible presence is about, you know, sort of reminding everyone we're there and we're in charge.

Every now and then, you know, there would be some fighting, so you're going to have to be kept fit.

So we're presuming they have regular training.

We don't know loads, so we know quite a bit about how you get trained to become a soldier.

At the beginning, there's sort of manuals on how to train a soldier as they enter the army.

We've got the Hippica Gymnasia, which is a text, and it's about, it's basically a bit of a show for the cavalry to put on and show all the moves they can do with the horses.

Presumably that would be something you would train for, a bit like our Horse Guards Parade now, because it's showing how one you are with the horse and the manoeuvres you can do.

They must have been doing regular training because otherwise, if all you're doing is standing on a wall walking, you know, you're going to not be fit.

And although the wall isn't overrun very much, even if you believe all the sources that say we were overrun, there's going to be basic training.

So you'd imagine there's a routine and, you know, every three days you're on, I don't know,

sword practice or you know a lot of it we would have to sort of guess but you would guess based on how you know the army works and at bird oswald they found a building that they have identified as a training hall a training hall an indoor one because i mean you can soldiers need to be used to going out in the bad weather but equally if you've got covered you know space then that's probably better because if your weapons and your armor gets wet unnecessarily it just adds more time to the care of them so um you know maybe you

I would say, and I'm a bit cheeky, because obviously I've studied a long time to get to this position, but a lot of archaeology, it's kind of like pears.

So you find something, and you've either seen it before or someone else has seen it before, and you're looking at other places where there's similar structures or other places there's similar objects and working out.

So from the layout of the building, where it is in the foreground,

Looking at other examples, the most likely is it's a training hall.