Metchley Roman Fort

Most people only know about Metchley Fort because of the lone notice board at the University of Birmingham campus, close to West Gate (Uni Rail Station). I’ll confess to not knowing much about it too! Having researched it a bit, I am surprised there isn’t more information readily available on this site, especially with all the redevelopment of the hospital and new roads etc. in this area.

Metchley Fort was built about 2000 years ago and is centred on what was once a traffic island outside the University Medical School (the roundabout has now gone, and the whole road layout here is changing). The fort itself was quite large – larger than I ever imagined. If you go and look at this blog, there is an image about halfway down that shows the boundaries of the fort, with modern features marked on, which helps to give a sense of scale.

For more in-depth information about the fort, these are some sites I used, read, looked at, perused (delete as applicable). I haven’t spent a decent amount of time researching this, but I hope this brief blog post spurs some of you on to investigate further.
Bill Dargue
Some pictures (click for bigger)
Roman Britain

And finally, a reconstruction of what it may have looked like, from Birmingham.gov.uk:

More notice board piccies:

Notice board pics were taken by me, on June 10th. The notice board can be visited - after leaving University railway station, turn left, and it is tucked around the corner.