In 1946 the RAF flew Spitfires over Corstorphine taking photos to help map the country after World War 2. These have now been made available online and an amazing discovery has been made – an outline shape in the configuration of a Roman Fort!

In the 1950’s before Broomhall and Wester Broom had been built excavations assisted by the house builder, MacTaggart and Mickel, had found two Roman roads and a possible Roman fort but the RAF photographs were not then available. The publication of these aerial photos gives an amazing link to the possible past.

The Local Heritage Centre in the Dower House Corstorphine is run by The Corstorphine Trust and they have a map showing a Roman Road coming south from Cramond. When the Broomhall Estate was built remains of an old fort were found in what is now Broomhall Terrace.

The evidence for and against

The Council for British Archaeology

The Council for British Archaeology published two accounts of Roman finds in Broomhall by Dr E Cormack in the 1950s

Discovery and Excavation Scotland 1958 By Dr E A Cormack

NT/194724. Recent building operations on the Broomhall estate have revealed evidence of a fort and a road.

The fort, of rectilinear outline and considerable extent, Iks on the S. bank of the former Gogar Loch. A substantial rampart and ditch have been seen in several cuttings through the N. and E. defences, and the structural features confirm the significance of linear crop marks seen on an air photograph in 1957. Although as yet no datable finds have been recovered, the evidence suggests the hitherto unsuspected presence of a Roman fort, linked by road with Cramond.

The road links Drumbrae Road with Broomhouse Road and includes a water crossing at the E. end of the former loch by a wooden bridge. A small ” pier ” (showing two phases of construction of the bridge) was found 4 ft. below the present surface, covered with peat sealed by a 9 ins. layer of clay deposited by the subsequent flooding of the loch, later drained and diminished since the 17th century. This discovery was made possible by the kind cooperation of Messrs Mactaggart and Mickel, Ltd., and their generous loan of a bulldozer.

A metalled causeway, -1 mile N. of the fort, crosses the line of the Drumbrae Road and has recently been traced K. across the S. flank of Corstorphine Hill, in alignment with a similar causeway exposed in the grounds of Donaldson’s Hospital and under the E. end of Eglinton Crescent, presumably an extension of the ancient ” Lang Gait ” and ” Fishwives’ Causeway ” leading to Inveresk.

Discovery and Excavation, Scotland, 1957 By Dr E A Cormack

Eighteenth-century maps show the Drumbrae road as a direct route between Cramond and Corstorphine. A deep trench across the road for a sewer al NT/192738. and another longitudinal trench for a gas main, have shown the old road underlying three layers of modern metalling. “It is constructed of cobbles (and in parts of large boulders) firmly bedded in clay, it is cambered, with 7-9 ins depth of cobbles in the centre. The edges have been disturbed, but the section indicates a width of about 15 ft.

A similar trench across Broomhouse Road at NT/197717 shows an old road of the same type of construction, in alignment with Drumbrae Road, and presumably contemporary. Continuing the same line further S., there is a cambered ridge running across Kingsknowe Golf Course and continuing as a line of scattered cobbles in a ploughed field E. of Wester Hailes Farm. These and other indications suggest a straight road from Colinton to Cramond passing between the former lochs of Gogar and Corstorphine.