Eight hundred years ago, this wild part of Britain was bandit country. By the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066, it was in the British-Scots Kingdom of Strathclyde – until the area as far north as Carlisle was taken by King William Rufus of England in 1092. Much of Brougham’s story remains buried and it is certainly not clear what happened there after the Romans departed. The Romans left sometime toward the end of the 4 th century, by which time the Romano-British civilian settlement which had grown up around it was extensive, stretching either side of the Eamont. Troops stationed at Brocavum included a unit that originated from what is now Portugal during the 1 st century and, in the 3 rd century, a unit raised in Anatolia – modern Turkey. It was a strategic location, part of a network initially designed to keep the local Brigantes tribe in check and eventually connecting York ( Eboracum) east-west across the Stainmore Pass and Carlisle ( Luguvalium) in the far north. The Roman fort was established in the late 1 st century AD at the confluence of the Lowther and Eamont rivers and on an important crossroads.
Someone should write a song about that road… get your kicks, on the A66… I’m sure they have.īrougham means something like ‘village by the fort’ and Brougham Castle was built, sometime in the early 13 th century, next to and partly on top of, the buried remains of a Roman fort, Brocavum. Here’s Brougham Castle, scenically sitting on the south bank of the River Eamont a couple of miles outside Penrith, just off the A66. Last Updated on 10th November 2021 by gazing up through the empty keep, where long-dead feet once paced across floors that have themselves long-since vanished, rotted away.
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