Situated on a low headland overlooking the mouth of the River Tyne, just beyond the eastern terminus of Hadrian's Wall several miles up river, the fort at South Shields (Arbeia, a name which appears in the Notitia Dignitatum) was built in mid-AD 160, at a time when the Antonine Wall was abandoned and Hadrian's Wall reoccupied. The fort was demolished at the beginning of the third century and replaced by granaries, which probably supplied the campaign of Septimius Serevus against the Scots in AD 208-210. After the emperor's death in York in AD 211 and the return of Caracalla and Geta to Rome, the supply base was enlarged and served the garrisons of Hadrian's Wall.
The impressive west gate has been reconstructed on the original site, its appearance based, in part, on Roman forts in Libya.
