The city is on the River Lune , directly inland from Morecambe Bay. Lancaster is the county town , [ 4 ] although Lancashire County Council has been based at County Hall in Preston since its formation in It is the seat of Lancaster University and has a campus of the University of Cumbria.
It had a population of 52, [ 5 ] in the census, compared to the district, which had a population of , The House of Lancaster was a branch of the English royal family. The Port of Lancaster and the 18th-century Lancaster slave trade played a major role in the city's growth, but for many years the outport of Glasson Dock , downstream, has been the main shipping facility.
A Roman fort was built by the end of the 1st century CE on the hill where Lancaster Castle now stands, possibly as early as the 60s, based on Roman coin evidence.
The fort was perhaps named Calunium. Roman baths were found in and can be seen near the junction of Bridge Lane and Church Street. There was presumably a bath-house with the 4th-century fort. The Roman baths incorporated a reused inscription of the Gallic Emperor Postumus , dating from to The 3rd-century fort was garrisoned by the ala Sebosiana and numerus Barcariorum Tigrisiensium. The ancient Wery Wall was identified in as the north wall of the 4th-century fort, which was a drastic remodelling of the 3rd-century one, while retaining the same orientation.
The later fort is the only example in north-west Britain of a 4th-century type, with massive curtain-wall and projecting bastions typical of the Saxon Shore or Wales. Extension of the technique as far north as Lancaster shows that the coast between Cumberland and North Wales was not left defenceless after the west-coast attacks and the disaster in the Carausian Revolt of , which followed from those under Albinus in The fort at its largest extent covered 9β10 acres 4β4 ha.
