The Polmont Woods are a woodland between Polmont and Grangemouth. Its most interesting feature is that the Antonine Wall went through this area – the true northernmost point of the Roman empire in Britain. It’s tempting to walk through these woods and imagine that the trees were there back in Roman times (well, maybe not the same trees) but it is clear that over the years there has been a lot of work done on this woodland – so maybe that is a little fanciful.
So while it will look different from what Roman soldiers saw, the steep hills in the area would have been there, the views up and down the Forth Valley would still have been clear, and that brutal wind would have been as cold then as now.
Who would want to have been a soldier taken from your home in southern Europe and posted here? No wonder they didn’t defend the wall with the energy they might have been able to apply further south!