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Our History

The Fort was occupied for some 300 years from the AD 120s. After the Roman period nothing is known of its history until 1777, although it appears to have simply been open farmland.

From 1777 through to the 1830s buildings associated with Wallsend Colliery covered part of the site. In the 1880s, despite an attempt to save it, the site of the Fort disappeared beneath terraced housing. A series of excavations in the late 1920s in the streets around the houses helped to securely fix its position. In the early 1970s the terraced housing was demolished with the intention of building new housing on the site.

However, archaeological excavations revealed that the Fort was far better preserved than had been hoped and, instead, the Local Authority preserved the site by marking out the defences in paving and leaving the central headquarters building on view. The rest of the site was grassed over.

A small museum, the Wallsend Heritage Centre, was opened in 1986, but closed in 1993. A section of Hadrian's Wall was excavated and a reconstruction built in the early 1990s. The Segedunum project began in January 1997 with a series of excavations in and around the Fort, as well as the construction of the Bath House and the conversion of former Swan Hunter shipyard buildings to house the new museum. Segedunum Roman Fort, Baths & Museum opened to the public in June 2000.