World Heritage

The Vindolanda Trust is an independant charity established in 1970 to excavate the remains on its land and to share the knowledge gained with the public through museum exhibtions. In 1987, Vindolanda and Magna (or Cavoran) joined the other Hadrian's Wall sites and museums to become part of a World Heritage Site. In 2005 this World Heritage Site was extended to include the German limes and in 2008 the Antonine Wall in Scotland. With these additions the transnational Frontiers of the Roman Empire came into existance.

Hadrian's Wall was built on the orders of the Emperor Hadrian c. AD 122 at what was then the northernmost limit of the Roman province Britannia. Emperor Antoninus Pious ordered the construction of the Antonine Wall, which runs across the Forth-Clyde isthmus in Scotland, in AD 142 as a defence against the barbarians of the North. The two sections of the Limes in Germany cover a length of 550km from the north-west of the country to the Danube in the south-east. 

The idea behind the Frontiers of the Roman Empire is to represent the border line of the Roman Empire at its greatest extent in the 2nd Century AD. It streched over 5,00 KM from the atlantic coast of northern Britain through Europe to the Black Sea, and from there to the Red Sea and across North Africa to the  Atlantic Coast. The remains of these frontiers are those of walls and ditches, forts, fortresses, towers, and civilian settlements. Some elements have been excavated some have been reconstructed and others have been destroyed.