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Enthusiasts have won a £50,000 prize to help fund a reconstruction of a Roman fort and settlement to teach children about history.

Paul Harston, of Caergwrle, Flintshire, runs a company giving Roman tours to thousands of children each year around Chester.

His Roman Fort Project is now looking for land in Flintshire or Cheshire.

He said:"The money will go a long way but we will have to be thrifty with it."

The not-for-profit project has been years in the planning.

Education centre

The idea is to find a plot of land to build a Roman fort as a replica of one that would have been built in the 1st Century - made of earth and wood and surrounded by a ditch.

The plan is to use original techniques using labour from other enthusiasts, organisations and businesses interested in the project.

Mr Harston also wants to see a Roman settlement created next to the fort, complete with fields of crops being managed as they would have grown in Roman times.

"The money will enable us to reconstruct a Roman fort to use as an education centre to teach Roman history and archaeology to school children across the country," he said.

The Roman Fort Project was the in a Barclays competition, Take One small Step, to help small businesses.

Barclays said over 5,000 businesses registered to take part and they were whittled down to a shortlist of 27 ideas across nine UK regions by a regional panel of three judges.

The public then voted for their favourite online.

Mr Harston said he is in talks with a landowner over a possible site.