A Visit to Caerleon Roman Fortress (near Newport, Wales)

8:17am Monday 17th March 2008

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At Caerleon there are lots of Roman romains. It doesn't take long to get there from Worcestershire. It also takes one hour and twenty minutes on a coach, but it would be even quicker in a car.

There is barracks, amphitheatre, baths and the museum. It will be ideal for you and your family.

At the Amphitheatre you can still see brilliant remains, a big area to act out in. They would of acted out gladiators against bears or wolves and also gladiators against prisoners. There would have been normal wooden seats for normal people and special boxes for VIPs.

Fairly near to the Amphitheatre is the Roman barracks, in fact it is the best remains in Europe. It was home for 80 men and on centurion and legionnaires in one room, a smaller room for their armour and weapons, also a separate bigger room for the centurion. There are also the latrines, but instead of toilet paper (in those days!) they had a stick with a piece of sponge on it and they dunked them in vinegar.

In the Roman times they did not have there own bath, they had to go to a bath place where everyone could go. Where the car park is, that's where the exercise yard was and they would of done stretching, weight lifting and a few other exercises. There were hypocausts there which are heaters and drains. There was one pool which was a cold pool called the fridgidarium, the tepidarium which was a warm pool and a hot pool called a caldarium. After they had been in all of the pools there was a slave which scraped the visitors with a strigel. A strigel is something like a bent knife but it did not hurt them and it scraped off all of the sweat.

In the museum you can see life size models of the centurions, standard bearer and legionary. You could see gem stones, pots, pans, armour, a coffin - stone with skeleton and many more things.

So go to Caerleon to see it for yourself and you will be amazed with the fantastic things there.

By Oriella Marucci, Joe Morris, Esther Paton, Hannah Hughes and Emily Chambers.

Welland Primary School, Worcestershire.