Information is provided about getting to each fort using:
- footpaths
- National Cycle Routes and/or
- roads
and if the maps show that you can’t get to, or next to, the fort then information is provided about how to get as close as possible, even though a view is not guaranteed.
So, have fun reading the maps, exploring a fort near you and visiting others further afield.
When visiting one of these forts you may wish to think about why this particular fort was built here; how was it built; what life might have been like inside it; who provided the water, food, drink, fuel, clothing, cooking facilities etc etc; and why it might have ceased to be a fort.
To help find out more, if the fort also has an official website listed by Historic England, Canmore (Scotland) or Cadw (Wales), the weblink is also provided as these can provide extensive information about any research and local archaeology.
Details about how to buy the maps from the OS Shop are also provided; they will also be available in Tourist Information Centres, some local shops and to borrow from your local library.
Have fun and do follow all local information about access and safety as this isn’t always available on the map!
If you do visit one of these forts, please do email any photos and information that may be of interest to others that we could put on the ‘Fort for the Day’ website. Similarly, if you know a local name for the fort, please let us know.
Which forts have been included?
Forts have been included in ‘Fort for the Day’ if they feature on the local OS Landranger/Discoverer maps in fonts similar to ‘FORT’ if Roman or ‘fort’ if non-Roman*.
With many more than 730 forts across the UK, this collection was chosen initially for personal reasons. I chose Landranger maps that covered parts of Great Britain that were places from my own history – childhood, university, holidays, places have lived as well as forts managed by English Heritage (see Background). These were followed by selecting maps that covered places that family and friends live. After this, maps were chosen to cover other parts of the UK in order to provide as good a coverage as possible.
A total of 95 of Ordnance Survey's 204 Landranger maps and 4 of its equivalent Northern Ireland Discoverer maps were needed to collect the 730 so, of course, there are many, many more forts listed on the remaining Landranger/Discoverer maps across the UK. These will be added at a later date.
*Another indulgence has been, on occasions, to ignore the decision to only list forts as defined on OS Landranger maps, thus enabling Richmond Castle to be included although it’s not a fort, as well as another in Swaledale that is only described as a fort on the Explorer map. But then the fun of doing a project like this is that “they are my rules and I can break them!”
NB No doubt there will also be mistakes, given the amount of information that has been collected and collated, so please do let us know if you find out anything useful so we can update the website. Thank you!.
The maps used to collect these forts are: OS Landranger maps 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 15, 16, 18, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 34, 38, 37, 47, 48, 49, 51, 54, 57, 60, 63, 65, 69, 74, 76, 78, 81, 82, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 95, 98, 102, 104, 107, 109, 114, 115, 117, 118, 119, 123, 126, 127, 132, 134, 135, 137, 138, 140, 149, 151, 154, 157, 159, 164, 168, 169, 170, 172, 173, 175, 176, 177, 179, 180, 181, 183, 184, 188, 192, 193, 194, 196, 197, 198, 200, 201, 202, 203 & 204 and OS of Northern Ireland Discoverer maps 9, 13, 26 & 29. The remaining maps will be reviewed in the coming months.