A YOUTHFUL Time Team are being taught 2,000-year-old techniques to update information on one of the region's largest Roman forts.

Ten teenagers are working at Binchester, near Bishop Auckland, where a defensive rampart and part of the fort survive, but a large civilian settlement is hidden beneath fields.

They are learning the same drawing and design methods that Roman surveyors would have used for recording earthworks and buildings.

The Time Detective programme also aims to trace some of the underground remains using magnetometry, the study of the physical properties of the Earth through magnetic field research.

At yesterday's first workshop the group drew the elevations of the fort's bath house wall, before moving on through the week to planning, plane tabling, taping and offsetting, levelling, map reading and geophysics.

Deborah Anderson, Durham's assistant county archaeologist, said: "The Romans would have done things exactly the same as we are doing. It is the perfect introduction to archaeology for young people and they are having a lot of fun."

Binchester, now a major tourist attraction, was one of a network of forts along Dere Street, the main Roman supply route between York and the Firth of Forth.

The excavated remains include a stretch of Dere Street, part of the commanding officer's house and his private bath house.

There are still places on the programme this week, for 13 to 15-year-olds and another next week for 15 to 17-year-olds. Transport is available from Bishop Auckland Town Hall. Contact Deborah Anderson on 0191-383 4225/4212 or 0778 8413385.