Archaeologists excavating the Magna Roman Fort in Northumberland have uncovered 32 leather shoes dating to roughly 2,000 years ago, eight of which measure at least 30 centimetres in length. The largest sole spans 32.6 centimetres, equivalent to a UK men’s size 13–14, making it the biggest Roman shoe yet catalogued by the Vindolanda Trust, which oversees the site near Hadrian’s Wall. The concentration of outsized footwear is striking: extra-large examples account for 25 % of the Magna haul, compared with just 0.4 % of more than 5,000 shoes recovered over decades at neighbouring Vindolanda. Elizabeth Greene, a shoe specialist at Western University who has measured the Vindolanda collection, said the Magna finds are "much larger on average than most" previously studied. Senior archaeologist Rachel Frame noted that the shoes were retrieved from a water-logged defensive ditch that Romans also used as a refuse pit. The low-oxygen conditions helped preserve organic materials, enabling researchers to analyse stitching patterns, leather quality and wear marks. Pottery from the same soil layers will be examined later this year to refine the dating and to probe why a garrison on Britain’s northern frontier might have required such unusually large footwear.