The cache is a large plastic container which has the capacity to take multiple trackable items and swag. It is located near the site of the former Ship in the Hole public house (now demolished), but is now the location of the WallQuest excavation of the Roman bath house on Hadrian's Wall at Wallsend.
The bath house has now been discovered and you can see parts of the original Roman baths which have sat below the old public house. The bath house would have been outside the site of Segedunum and used by locals as well as the soldiers stationed at the fort.
From the location of the cache you can observe the excavations as volunteers uncover more of the Roman archaeology, which at the time of planting the cache looked like this:
The original contents of the cache were:
- Paracord voodoo doll
- Bouncy ball
- Switzerland lanyard
- Paracord keyring
- Gerozlils 100 Years of Scouting Tag (Trackable Item)
From the WallQuest website:
The reconstructed Roman baths at Segedunum Roman Fort, Wallsend, are not on the site of the original Roman baths. These were last seen in 1814 when they were discovered during the building of a coal staith leading from a waggonway to the river, 120m south of the fort. The discovery of the remains of what sounds like a bath house was described by the historian John Hodgson. During the building of the coal staith the remains were badly damaged and covered over, and the site was rapidly forgotten.
After months of detective work on old maps and records, WallQuest volunteers at Wallsend pinpointed the site of the original Roman bath house directly under the former Ship in the Hole pub, now demolished.
Guided by this desk-based research, initial trenches dug by WallQuest volunteers in May 2014 found Roman pottery, waterproof bath cement, and building stones. At the end of June actual Roman walls and a well-preserved cold-plunge bath began to appear. The diggers have scored a bullseye and struck the long lost baths at the first attempt.
First indications are that the baths were built to a standard plan found at the Hadrian’s Wall forts of Benwell, Chesters, Carrawburgh and Bewcastle which shows that the baths are of Hadrianic date (AD 120s), though, they were used and modified for at least 150 years.
Investigation of the remains will go on through summer 2014. Thanks to the work of local people the baths of the Roman fort at Wallsend have been rediscovered, exactly 200 years after they were first described by John Hodgson.