Mumrills

Mumrills was the site of the largest Roman fort on the Antonine Wall. The source also notes the possibility that it could exchange signals with Flavian Gask Ridge forts.

Excavations between 1923 and 1928 and again between 1958 and 1960 established the fort's outline. Photographs of the excavations are available online.

An altar to Hercules Magusanus was found in 1841 near the Bridge at Brightons, about a mile south-east of the fort, and is now in National Museums Scotland. A second altar, to the Matres or mother goddesses, was found at Mumrills and was dedicated by Cassius, a signifer, meaning a standard-bearer, serving at the fort.

A funerary inscription for Nectovelius records him as the son of Vindex, a Brigantian by birth, aged thirty, who served for nine years in the Second Cohort of Thracians. Because the Brigantes were a Celtic tribe from what became northern England, the inscription shows native Britons serving in the Roman army.

Other finds include a Hercules carving discovered in a Laurieston back garden in 1987, part of a palmate funerary monument, iron tools, a box flue tile, a cooking pot, and Roman concrete made with crushed tile. Animal bones and shells give clues to diet, while possible tanning or smithing buildings and a hearth point to support work around the fort.

Later traditions and uses accumulated around the site. Some believe Mumrills may have been the place of Wallace's defeat at the Battle of Falkirk, and the farm at Mumrills was used as an early site for the Falkirk Relief Church.