HADRIAN'S WALL

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3442, 12 March 1932, Page 2

HADRIAN'S WALL

ONE OF ROME'S OUTPOSTS.

HOW IT STANDS'TO-DAY.

A. M. Moorhead writes on an interesting subject as follows in a London paper:— Travellers to Scotland all cross the ancient frontier, where can still be traced by those who care to seek the wall built by the long-dead Roman Emperor as a barrier against the Empire’s northern foes. For to-day, on the high moors, between Chollerford and Gilsland, the road runs for miles beside long ditches flanked by turf-covered banks here and there surmounted with stones blackened by weather and the passing of years. Here once stood the Roman soldier—an alien in an alien and hostile land—guarding the outposts of an Empire almost as far-flung as our own. How often his weary eyes must have travelled over the same wide stretch of country that lies before us to-day—not admiring the view, but watching for the fierce and uncivilised foe that might at any moment hurl his undisciplined forces against the hated barrier. Hadrian Visits Britain. Hadrian, a much-travelled man and the second reigning emperor to cross the seas, came to Britain in the year 122, bringing with him the Sixth Legion to replace the Ninth, which had been stationed at York and was wiped out during a revolt in Northern Britain. He it was who built across Britain this rampart extending over 70 "miles, and strengthened by outpost and detached forts to guard the Cumberland coast, where the wall came to an end. This marked the north-west limit of the Roman Empire, but those who go seeking for a similar stone wall in character, if not in size, to the Great Wall of China, will be disappointed. The Famous Wall. The wall now known as Hadrian’s consists of three courses:— (1) A stone wall six to eight feet thick, originally perhaps 14 feet high, with a deep ditch in front, strengthened by forts and turrets, which were linked together by a road behind.

(2) A vallum, incorrectly named, which was really a broad, flatbottomed ditch flanked on either side by ramparts of earth. The reason for its presence has not as yet been discovered. Some think it may have been constructed for defence against southern attacks, others that it was not for military use at all, but to mark the limit of civil power of Britain.

(3) A turf wall now not always visible, with a ditch in front. The sods were laid in regular courses, and are older than the stone wall. Hadrian’s work is so mingled with that of later times that the different constructions are almost impossible to identify; but it is now generally thought that Hadrian’s wall (of whose existence proof is available both from contemporary inscriptions and literature) probably consisted of turf rather than stone —and that the stonework dates from the reign of Septimus Severus, by whose orders Hadrian’s Wall, stretching from Wallsend to Bowness, was entirely re-built. This would account for the disappearance in many places of the original turf wall. Lollius Urbicus Aedificavit. Native opposition to the power of Rome must have died down in the years following, for about 142 a general of Antonius Pius named Lollius Urbicus was able to advance from the old Tyne and Solway frontier to the narrower isthmus of the Firth of Clyde, where he built a wall 36 miles long after the manner of Hadrian’s on a line previously fortified by Agricola. This was an addition to, but did not seek to replace, the old barrier, which was still strongly held, the land between the two being a military area only, and considered beyond the bounds of civilisation.

In later times of weaker emperors, when wars and disturbances rent the Empire from end to end, the barbarians regained their lost ground, penetrating as far south as the Cheviots. The northern boundary was lost until the advent of Septimus Severus, who invaded Caledonia and commenced the rebuilding of Hadrian’s Wall in stone Four years later he died at York, having reestablished the old boundary as the frontier line ,to remain so for nearly ly another 200 years. Housesteads. Housesteads, a fort on Hadrian’s Wall dating from the time of this emperor, may be considered a typical specimen of the Roman forts in Britain. Covering- less than five acres, with its north rampart coinciding with the wall itself, it housed but the bare necessities for a garrison. In the centre was a rectangular building of stone with but one entrance—the headquarters of Praetorium, containing the official shrine, treasury, etc. Officers’ quarters and storehouses were close by, and the men were housed in stone barracks at either end of the fortress. No space was available for the comforts of domesticity. Public shrines, baths, the

cottages housing wives and campfollowers, were all outside the walls. Only the essentials were within, for the Wall must be defended at all costs. Excavations along this old frontier line are still in progress, and only the other day stonework of a turret was uncovered by workmen near Newcastle. Here also the fortifications are seen to be in three courses as on the hills above Chollerford, and here, too, on the very Wall itself have been discovered sootcoated fragments of an earthenware pot and the traces of fuel used by members of one of the defending legions over 1800 years ago.