Military Architects and Building Design in Roman Britain

Compared with many other branches of Romano-British archaeology, the study of buildings is in its infancy. This paper concentrates on one aspect of building study, the principles of design upon which plans were based; and it is further confined to military buildings. These were selected partly to limit the material under consideration to a manageable group and partly because the methods used to erect them were more likely to have been standardised to some degree. Military architecture should not, however, be seen as a selfcontained discipline: it can only really be understood as a manifestation of architectural methods and philosophy in a wider world.