Abschlussbericht: Digitizing Corbridge Roman Town

The project “Digitizing Corbridge Roman Town” has been transformed with the support of the HERMES-Forschungsstudienprogramm für Datenkompetenzen in den Geistes- und Kulturwissenschaften at the Leibniz-Institut für Europäische Geschichte. The aim of the project was to produce the first geographic information system for the Roman site at Corbridge, mapping both the structures visible today and those known only from excavation. This funding made it possible to conduct a comprehensive survey and documentation campaign, building a foundation upon which the legacy data could be integrated into a new system.

More than a century of research has produced a huge quantity of inconsistent, analogue spatial information. The variation in everything from basic location names to numerical systems has made it difficult to integrate datasets and to study the site. The key objectives of this project were (1) to synthesize and standardize the existing information, (2) to enhance it with new documentation of the architecture, and (3) to integrate the data into a single GIS, made freely available to enable new research. The HERMES funding supported an extensive architectural survey campaign at Corbridge and the subsequent data processing between May and November 2025. The project was conducted in collaboration with English Heritage, which manages the site, and with support from Historic England. The geospatial data produced as part of this project is being published open-access with the Archaeological Data Service in its Data Catalogue. This report reviews the work undertaken for each of the project objectives and discusses the larger outcomes.