The Project Gutenberg eBook of Hadrian's Wall, by Jessie Mothersole

THIRLWALL CASTLE, BUILT OF WALL-STONES,
HERE THE SCOTTS THIRLED ( i.e. PIERCED) THE WALL

HADRIAN'S WALL

First Published ... October 1922
Second Edition ... December 1922
Third Edition ... December 1924

THE ISLES OF SCILLY : Their Story,
Their Folk, and their Flowers

With 26 Plates in Colour

PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION

Since the first appearance of this book, a very important event has occurred in the history of Hadrian's Wall. It has been definitely recognized as a monument of national importance, to be scheduled and protected under the authority of the Office of Works. This means that owners and occupiers of the lands over which it extends will be powerless to interfere with it, unless by the authority of the Department, and that they will be liable for the repair of any damage that may be done to it.

It is not too much to say that this marks the greatest epoch in the history of the Wall since, at the end of the fourth century, it ceased to be garrisoned, and was allowed to fall into disrepair. Neglect or wanton destruction fell to its share for fourteen hundred years. Now the Office of Works has set the seal on the tireless efforts of Mr. John Clayton and Dr. Collingwood Bruce, who would indeed have rejoiced to see this day.

Important discoveries have been made at several { vi} points along the line of the Wall during the last three years.

The site of the fort at Burgh-by-sands was definitely located by Mr. W. G. Collingwood, F.S.A., and Mr. R. G. Collingwood, F.S.A., in 1922. Since 1903, when the main road was "up" for drainage purposes and no Roman remains were found, the very existence of the fort had been questioned.

But excavation has resulted in the discovery of the east gate, lying just north of Hadrian's Wall, on the edge of the main road, which represents roughly the via principalis . Stone barrack-buildings were also traced, running north and south, and the fort was proved to have lain across the line of Hadrian's Wall, as did Cilurnum. The main road is a cutting, below the level of any Roman remains. The stones of some of the fort walls had rotted so completely that the spade cut quite through them, and thus my scepticism about "perishing stones" in the neighbourhood was rebuked (p. 207). The Church at Burgh probably occupies the site of one of the central buildings, perhaps of a granary, the massive stones from which would be very handy for the Church-builders.

Hadrian's Wall was found to join the main road a little to the east of the Vicarage, from which point the road is laid partly on the Wall's { vii} foundations, and partly on its berm, up to the junction of Wall and fort.

A site known as Old Castle, about 200 yards eastward from the fort, marks the position of the mediæval castle of Sir Hugh de Morville, built, no doubt, of stones from the Wall and fort. The remains of a small Roman bridge, which carried the Military Way over the Powburgh Beck, are to be seen some 300 yards east of the Old Castle.

At Rudchester, Mr. Parker Brewis, F.S.A., has directed excavations of the fort of Vindobala. It was found to be similar in plan to Cilurnum, lying across the Wall, and with six gates. Three out of the five chambers of the headquarters buildings were uncovered, including the Chapel of the Standards with the treasury beneath; and there was also found the largest granary yet known in the north of England.

Both portals of the double west gate, and also the west portal of the south gate, were found to have been built up as early as the middle of the second century.

The Excavation Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-on-Tyne, appointed in February 1924, has been enlarged into "The North of England Excavation Committee," which hopes to open up other sites on the Wall during 1925, with Mr. Parker Brewis still as Director. A detailed { viii} report of the work at Rudchester will shortly be published.

Below Birdoswald, Dr. R. C. Shaw, of Manchester University, is, as I write, completing the excavation of the bridge over the Irthing, referred to on page 163 . No trace has been discovered of any western abutment, and it has therefore presumably been washed away by the strong current of the river; but on the eastern side a whole series of abutments has been uncovered. The course of the river is now much farther west than it was in Roman times, and it was evidently necessary in their day to rebuild the abutments farther and farther west as the river receded in that direction.

The remains of these abutments are most impressive, and Hadrian's Wall has been found standing up to nine courses of stones.

I. A very interesting feature, and one likely to give rise to much discussion, is the discovery of a 10-foot thick wall, of earlier date than the Great Wall, and ending in an abutment which is also 10 feet thick. The bridge starting from this abutment could only have been wide enough to carry the rampart-walk. Farther inland this wall has been found to a height of one or two courses of stone above the foundations.

II. Here a wall of superior masonry, of the { ix} character usually associated with Hadrian's Wall, has been built, 7½ feet wide, on the lower courses of the earlier wall, the original wall having been allowed to remain near the water. The new wall was found to be accompanied by a road about 14 feet wide, which was carried up to an abutment of large masonry blocks—re-used material, apparently taken from the breastwork of the earlier abutment. The road has a gravel surface and a foundation of cobbles.

III. A tower, larger than the one at Chesters, was built on the top of the aforesaid road-abutment. Of its two floor-levels, the earlier, of clay, was Hadrianic or Antonine, later than the Wall, and earlier than the late Antonine rising. The second floor, of sand, was also probably second century, the two floors agreeing approximately with what are known as the 1 a and 1 b levels.

A new length of wall, westwards towards the river, was added when the tower was built, the abutment was reconstructed, and buttressed on the south side by a massive tapering breastwork.

IV. Possibly a rectangular abutment was added to the face of the tapering breastwork, but this phase is not yet clear.

V. A very massive curved abutment and a Water-pier, with stone pavement between them, were constructed still farther west, forming an open { x} sluice. The character of this work suggests the time of Severus or later in the third century.

VI. The open sluice was filled with gravel and stones, sealed down with a layer of lime; probably in the fourth century.

Since the work is still in progress, these notes can only indicate the stage reached up to 17th November 1924.

Dr. Shaw has also excavated two Wall-turrets, one behind the byre of Willowford farm-house, which has been left uncovered, and another nearer Gilsland. The Wall was found to have been thickened to 10 feet in width in the neighbourhood of the turrets.

The question has often been raised as to whether it is better to walk the Wall from east to west (as I did) or from west to east. I am an "East-to-Wester" all the time. It is far pleasanter to end the walk on the seashore of a picturesque fishing-village than in the smoky suburbs of a great industrial city.

And has not the trend of humanity always been westward? ... "A kind of heavenly destiny," says Wordsworth in his "Stepping Westward."

It is almost certain that the Romans worked westward in building the Wall. As their first fine enthusiasm began perhaps to wane, they found { xi} it necessary to call in the help of tribes from Devon and Cornwall, and from near London, and also of men of the fleet. Inscribed stones have been found at Netherby near Carlisle, and at Triermain near Birdoswald, giving evidence that men of the Classis Britannica worked on the Wall at the western end; and other stones, at Holmhead and at Howgill, give the names of two southern tribes, the Dumnonii and the Catuvellauni, suggesting that they also helped at this end.

Following Dr. Collingwood Bruce, I have called the road from Newcastle to Carlisle "Wade's Road." This is a mistake, for General Wade died in 1748, as his monument in Westminster Abbey shows, and the road was not made until 1753. The Act of Parliament authorizing it was passed in 1750.

In conclusion, I must add a few words about the purpose of the Wall. On page 23 , I have said: "No one ever doubts what it was meant to be or to do." This is true, in the sense that the Wall, in its perfect condition, would cry aloud to all comers, "Thus far and no farther." It was essentially a barrier . But the old idea that it was intended to be used as a fighting-ground is exploded. It had been built two centuries before the Romans could have practised bow-and-arrow warfare, such as Kipling describes in "Puck of Pook's Hill." The { xii} auxiliaries were then armed only with the usual short sword and heavy throwing-spear, quite unsuitable weapons for warfare from a wall; and the width of the Wall was insufficient for the use of catapults and ballistæ.

No; the Wall was an elevated sentry-walk, a continuous look-out tower; it was a guarantee that no one could enter Roman territory without Roman permission. When the sentries on the Wall gave warning of an attack from the north, the cohorts from the forts would not line up on the Wall; they would fling wide the northern gates, and march out to meet the enemy in the open. The whole question is very interestingly discussed in an article on "The Purpose of the Roman Wall," by Mr. R. G. Collingwood, in No. VIII. of The Vasculum .

INTRODUCTION

"You never can bring in a Wall.
Some man or other must present Wall."
Midsummer Night's Dream.

The idea of a colour-book on Hadrian's Wall was suggested to me by friends in 1914. Then came the Great War, blotting out all thought of work of this kind.

But in 1920 I was taken by these friends along the line of the Wall, and I soon fell a victim to its many attractions. My friends went home; but I found hospitality at the farms and other houses in the neighbourhood, and began to paint at once.

Before long I decided to "walk the Wall" every foot of the way, 73½ miles, from sea to sea, being inspired thereto by the example and the record of William Hutton. Many of my readers will need an introduction to this delightful character, whose book—to which I shall often have occasion to refer—is now out of print.

William Hutton was an archæologist of Birmingham, who in 1801, at the age of seventy-eight, { xiv} travelled alone and on foot "six hundred miles to see a shattered Wall."

He then published an account of the Wall and the walk, written in a very original and interesting style, although, as he tells us, "the Battledore , at an age not exceeding six, was the last book I used at school."

"The respectable and amiable Author" (to use the words of contemporary critics) started from Birmingham with his daughter; but since she rode on a pillion behind a servant, and he went on foot, they can hardly be said to have "accompanied" each other. They used to meet at the inns, for dinner, bed and breakfast; and at Penrith they parted, she making her way to Keswick and the Lakes, he to Carlisle and his beloved Wall.

He sent his daughter two notes during his Wall journey: the first from Carlisle, in which he said he was sound in body, shoe and stocking, and had just risen from a lodging among fleas; the second, from Newcastle, when he wrote (to quote her words) "that he had been at the Wall's End; that the weather was so hot he was obliged to repose under hedges; and that the country was infested with thieves: but, lest I should be under any apprehensions for his personal safety, he added they were only such as demolished his idol, the Wall, by stealing the stones of which it was composed."

"I would enliven truth with the smile, with the anecdote; and while I travel the long and dreary Wall, would have you travel with me, though by your own fireside; would have you see and feel as I do; and make the journey influence your passions as mine are influenced."

There is no doubt that his enthusiasm is infectious, and that whoever follows the Wall in the same spirit as he did, will not find it a "long and dreary" journey.

For myself, I was fascinated by it; I enjoyed every step of the way; and the pictures of the Wall which are here reproduced are the fruit of many happy days spent in its company.

Owing to present conditions, the original idea of a colour-book was dropped, for something more portable and less costly, so the number of illustrations in colour is limited to six, instead of the twenty-five I had prepared; and of the remaining nineteen, only eight appear in monochrome.

In one sense I did not walk the Wall alone. I had two companions, William Hutton and Dr. Collingwood Bruce. The latter was represented by his Handbook on the Wall, which was first published in 1863, and which has proved its value by having appeared, in seven successive editions, as the standard work on the subject. Dr. Bruce and Mr. John Clayton will always be remembered as the great pioneers of practical research on the Wall.

I owe much to the kindness of Mr. F. Gerald Simpson, who hopes to return to active work on the Wall next year (at Birdoswald), and who is my authority on many points in the archæology of the Wall which his recent excavations have brought to light. Much is waiting to be done, but the adequate prosecution of the work in the future will depend entirely on how much financial help is forthcoming from those interested in historical research.

I was very fortunate in falling in with the Three Days' Pilgrimage of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the Cumberland and Westmorland Archæological Society, and in being allowed to join it, in September 1920; and I have to thank the members for their kind welcome to a stranger, and for their readiness to help me. In this connection I must specially mention Mrs. T. H. Hodgson, Mr. Robert Blair, F.S.A., and Mr. W. G. Collingwood, F.S.A.

Archæologia Æliana , issued yearly by the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and the annual Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archæological Society have been of the greatest service as works of reference. To the former I am also indebted for the plans of the Roman Bridge and of Cilurnum and Borcovicium (Figs. 6, 8, and 12).

From the work entitled Romano-British Buildings and Earthworks , by the late Mr. John Ward, { xvii} F.S.A., the author and the publishers (Messrs. Methuen & Co.) have kindly allowed me to take Figs. 9, 10, 11, 12, and 14.

Readers who wish to study the latest discoveries with regard to the Vallum will find them in the recently published The Purpose and Date of the Vallum and its Crossings , by Mr. F. Gerald Simpson and Dr. R. C. Shaw (Titus Wilson, Kendal). It forms part of vol. xxii. of the Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archæological Society, but it can also be obtained separately.

For those who do not care to walk all the way, and who wish to see a great deal of the Wall in a short time, the George Inn at Chollerford makes a delightful centre. It stands on the bank of the North Tyne, with well-kept gardens sloping down to the water's edge, just where a five-arched stone bridge crosses the river. The bridge dates from 1771, the year when every bridge over the Tyne except the one at Corbridge was swept away by heavy floods.

Chollerford is only 21 miles by road from Newcastle, and the road runs on the Wall foundations nearly all the way. The little station of Humshaugh, on the branch-line from Hexham, is quite close to the George .

For motorists an excellent plan is to make the { xviii} George their headquarters and thence to visit the Fort of Cilurnum at Walwick Chesters. Then to travel by car along Wade's Road, noting the points of interest en route , until the entrance to Housesteads (Borcovicium) is reached. Here the car must be left and the fort examined. The walk thence along the mural ridge can be made long or short according to inclination. Tracks run down to Wade's Road at frequent intervals—at Milking Gap, Peel, Caw Gap and Pilgrims' Gap (by the Haltwhistle Burn). From Borcovicium to Pilgrims' Gap would be a walk of nearly 6 miles along the Wall ridge; so for those who do not care to walk so far on rough ground, a better plan would be to send the car on to Bradley farm-house and to descend to the road by Milking Gap; travel by car to Peel and examine the fine remains of Wall there; return to the car for another 2½ miles along Wade's Road, and then walk up by the Haltwhistle Burn to examine the Cawfields mile-castle and the Wall in its neighbourhood.

Gilsland is the best centre for visiting, not only the Fort of Amboglanna, at Birdoswald, but also the Nine Nicks of Thirlwall and Thirlwall Castle, and the site of the Fort of Magna at Carvoran. There is very good accommodation at Gilsland. From Birdoswald, cars can travel actually on the line of the Wall as far as the village of Banks, near which, at Hare Hill, the highest piece of Wall { xix} yet standing is to be seen. The road journey can be continued past Lanercost Priory through Brampton to Carlisle, whence road and Wall run close together, for the most part, all the way to Bowness, where the Wall ends; but only the pedestrian can examine it thoroughly.

Those who prefer to travel by train can easily visit the Wall in sections, making Hexham, Gilsland and Carlisle their headquarters. On the line between Newcastle and Carlisle, Fourstones is the station for visiting Cilurnum; Haydon Bridge for Sewingshields; Bardon Mill for Vindolanda and Borcovicium; Haltwhistle for Æsica and Winshields; Greenhead for Thirlwall Castle and the Nine Nicks; Gilsland for Amboglanna; and Naworth for Lanercost and Banks.

CHAPTER I

THE MESSAGE OF THE WALL

There is no doubt that this great Roman Wall, from Tyne to Solway, this mighty relic of a mighty people, gains a wonderful hold on the affections of those who follow its course, stirring the imagination and quickening the pulses in a way that could hardly be expected from a mere crumbling ruin. All who have learnt to know and to love it will admit this; it unites them all in one common bond; though built to place a barrier between the dwellers of the north and the south, certainly nowadays it draws many of them closer together! What is the secret of this attraction? The fact that the Wall is the mightiest antiquity of Britain is not of itself sufficient to account for the glamour it sheds. We must seek a more subtle reason; and the true { 2} source of its attraction is that it stands for a great ideal.

As we follow it in its unfaltering course from sea to sea, and mark how bravely it has withstood the ravages of time and the hand of the destroyer, it dawns upon us that it stands for something permanent, something eternal, something in the very nature of man which can never die. We see that these stones, of Wall, and Fort, and Castle, are signs of the strength and endurance, the discipline, obedience and devotion to duty of the men who conceived the whole idea, and of the men who carried out the conception.

Although it is now definitely ascertained that Hadrian built the Wall, yet we must go back to Agricola for the source of the inspiration. It was he who laid the foundations of a righteous Roman rule in Britain. It was he who saw that the petty chieftains of the southern parts must be educated to sink their differences, and to unite in allegiance to the Roman Empire. It was he who, by his own disinterested and unselfish conduct, gave to the British chiefs an example of public-spirited loyalty to principle which was a thousand times more valuable than precept.

As I followed the Wall, this was the refrain which repeated itself over and over again in my { 3} ears, and echoed in the streets of the deserted forts: these words of Tacitus which form part of the tribute paid by a distinguished son to his distinguished father:

Yes, the Wall is a ruin; the "defenced cities" have become "heaps"; and the might and glory of Rome have long been laid in the dust; but the great and good qualities of men like Agricola and Hadrian shine down the ages, and remain a source of inspiration and of strength for ever.

Agricola was the finer character, and he had the advantage of escaping the temptations which imperial dignities bring; but in Hadrian, also, we see that devotion to a sense of duty, that clear perception of justice, that wisdom in administration, which are of the qualities that endure, and leave their mark on future ages.

The aim of both Agricola and Hadrian was to convert Britain into a peaceful and self-governed Roman province. Their incentive was the love of an ideal. Each had a vision of stability and unity; but whereas Agricola's direct endeavour was to absorb and Romanize the whole island, Hadrian chose to consolidate rather than to extend. In helping the Britons south of the Wall line to keep out the raiding Caledonians, and encouraging them { 4} to settle down, undisturbed, to peaceful agricultural and industrial pursuits, he hoped that in time the leaven of this higher ideal would spread north to the farthest limits of the island.

In all ages the building of walls has marked a stage of advance in the evolution of human character, in so far as it has meant a progress from the offensive to the defensive position.

In ancient Persia, the great reformer Zarathusthra condemned the raiding lives of the nomads, and held up the purer ideal of a peaceable and industrious community, dwelling within walls, and living on the fruit of their labour. Tradition says that he was slain by a resentful nomad on the steps of a temple, and thus he gave his life for his ideal.

History repeats itself. Persia, China, Greece and Rome all built walls of brick or stone to keep out the enemy, and maintain the stability of their respective empires. Each had an ideal of unity to achieve, and sought in this way to promote it.

In our own day, unity is still the ideal. Have we made a great advance over the methods of our predecessors?

Rome had great qualities, great and good men; yet she fell. What did she lack? She has left us shining examples of strength, endurance, courage, justice and devotion to duty. Where did she fail?

She lacked just what we lack ourselves: the true idea of unity, the true ideal of universal love, without which all other greatness "profiteth nothing."

Are we just beginning to learn that the true "walls" which can alone preserve any nation or empire from destruction or decay, and which do indeed ensure its stability, are not walls of brick or stone, not armies, Dreadnoughts, aeroplanes nor submarines, but great moral and spiritual qualities, high aspirations, an ideal of unity which views the whole world as one, faced by one common enemy, and sees that, with the nation as with the individual, true greatness consists in humility and willingness to serve?

"Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise."

CHAPTER II

HISTORICAL

In studying the Wall it is well to refresh our memory of Roman history wherever it relates to Britain, to sit in our mental "picture-house" as it were, and let scene after scene flit by us on the screen.

First, in 55 B.C., we see Julius Cæsar, as governor of Gaul, arriving to punish the interfering islanders of Britain for the help they had given to the Gallic tribes in their resistance to him; meeting with little success, and so withdrawing, only to return again the following year, with five legions instead of two. Then we see the British king, Cassivelaunus, whose capital was where St. Albans now stands, uniting with hostile neighbours to meet the common foe. We see him fixing sharp stakes in the bed of the Thames at the only fordable point, in a vain attempt to check the Roman legions; which stakes were still to be seen in the river-bed seventy years ago, and are probably there still.

The next picture shows Cæsar's return to Gaul in the same year, taking with him British hostages, { 7} to ensure the payment of tribute, and exhibiting as a trophy a corslet of British pearls.

After this there was what Tacitus calls "a long forgetfulness of Britain," so far as conquest was concerned. He says of Cæsar that "he rather discovered the island for his descendants than bequeathed it to them." For ninety-seven years there was peaceful communication with Rome, and the whole island, according to Strabo, became "intimate and familiar to the Romans." The British king, Cunobelin, the Cymbeline of Shakespeare, was brought up at the Court of Augustus, and no doubt did something to introduce Roman laws and customs. But still the people were as free as if Cæsar had never landed.

Then, in 40 A.D., we see the demented Caligula (or "Little Boots," the nickname his soldiers gave him) deciding in a moment of caprice to invade Britain, but returning after no more than a glance at the white cliffs of the island, and with sea-shells from the beach at Boulogne as his only trophy.

The Emperor Claudius comes next, in 43 A.D. Stirred up by discontented British fugitives at Rome, he sent troops to Britain, under Aulus Plautius and Vespasian. When the expedition succeeded, he came in person, stopping only sixteen days in the island, but celebrating a stupendous triumph on his return to Rome. On the strength of his victorious campaign, he called his infant son { 8} Britannicus, and had the name of Britain stamped on his coins.

Aulus Plautius was the first consular governor of Britain. His wife, Pomponia Græcina, was a Christian. Was she, perhaps, the first Christian to land on our shores?

Ostorius Scapula succeeded Plautius, and it was into his hands that the British king, Caradoc (or Caratacus), the son of Cunobelin, fell, after offering a brave resistance for at least seven years.

Our next picture shows the entry of Caradoc and his family into Rome, in 50 A.D., as prisoners of war. The noble bearing of the king alone saved him from death in the arena.

After this the Romans began definitely to colonize Britain. Tacitus writes in 97 A.D.: "The nearest portion of Britain was reduced little by little to the condition of a province; a colony of veterans was also planted; certain states were handed over to King Cogidumnus (who has remained continuously loyal down to our own times), according to the old and long-received principle of Roman policy, which employs kings among the instruments of servitude."

Successive governors maintained or extended Roman authority, until the eastern and southern portions were so far subdued that the governor, Suetonius Paulinus, felt able to cross over to Mona (the island of Anglesey) to bring into subjection this stronghold of the Druids.

Here was the opportunity of the British tribes, more restive than they had seemed beneath the Roman yoke. Our next picture is a terrible one. In 61 A.D., seventy thousand persons, "all Romans or confederates of Rome," were destroyed by the Iceni, under Queen Boudicca, in the Romanized towns of Camulodunum, Londinium and Verulam (Colchester, London and St. Albans).

Paulinus returned hastily to the rescue, and "the fortunes of a single battle restored the country to its ancient submissiveness." So says Tacitus; but it was only a surface submission; the fire was smouldering, not quenched.

A milder governor succeeded Paulinus, and under him and his successors Roman civilization and Roman vices began to spread among the Britons.

Then came two rulers of sterner type, who subdued the Brigantes (of Lancashire and the north-west counties) and the Silures (of South Wales).

Following them came Agricola, in 78 A.D., surely the greatest figure in the history of Roman Britain! He was appointed governor by the Emperor Vespasian, the foundations of whose own career had been laid in Britain. Agricola, also, had served his apprenticeship to war in the island, under Suetonius Paulinus, having passed through the critical period when the Roman towns were burned and the populations butchered.

His character has been very ably drawn for us { 10} by his son-in-law, Tacitus, who shows that the ideal of true greatness, in those days of imperial luxury and vice, was as high as our own, and that there were some who came near to attaining to it.

Unassuming, tactful, patient, incorruptible; kind and affectionate; brave and energetic, and yet modest; strictly just, and yet merciful; so great that it would be an insult to dwell upon his probity and self-control—these are some of the qualities with which Tacitus credits his father-in-law; and the ability with which he governed Britain goes a long way towards proving the picture true.

Shortly before his arrival in Britain to take up the reins of government, the tribes of the Ordovices, of North-west Wales, had crushed almost to a man the regiment of cavalry encamped amongst them. Such an incident could not be overlooked by the new Governor. Now was the moment to show what spirit he was of! Supplementing Roman troops with native auxiliaries, he marched to the hills where the Ordovices were hid, and almost exterminated the whole tribe.

"Horrible!" does some one say? Yes; it was horrible. A soldier's devotion to duty always gives him terrible work to do; and we in this so-called Christian country can take no superior attitude, though 1800 years have passed.

Agricola then subdued Mona; and having thus { 11} established a reputation for courage and firmness he set himself to the task of making peace more attractive to the Britons than war. His intention was to habituate them to peace and quiet by turning their thoughts to something better than war, and therefore he encouraged them to build temples, houses and market-places.

"The rivalry for his compliments took the place of coercion." "He began to train the sons of the chieftains in a liberal education, and to give a preference to the native talents of the Briton as against the plodding Gaul." But he did not neglect military tactics. "Time was found also for the planting of forts. Experts noted that no other general selected more shrewdly the advantages of site; no fort planted by Agricola was carried by storm by the enemy, or abandoned by arrangement and flight; as for a protracted siege, against this they were secured by supplies for twelve months. Accordingly, winter was shorn of its fears, and sallies were frequent; each commander could protect himself, whilst the enemy were helpless, and therefore despaired. They had been accustomed in most places to weigh the 'incidents' of winter against the summer's losses; now they were repelled summer and winter alike."

But of all Agricola's notable achievements that which specially concerns us now is his work in the { 12} north. Here, in 79 A.D., he constructed for military purposes the famous cross-road, which in Saxon times began to be called the "Stanegate," or "Stone Way." His chief centres, or advanced bases, were Corbridge (Corstopitum) and Carlisle (Luguvallium) between which this road ran. His other forts were on the same road line, but not generally on the line of the Wall, as archæologists formerly thought. It may yet be proved that two or three of the Wall forts were first built by him as outliers of his chain of forts.

Later, in 81 A.D., he built a chain of forts from the Forth to the Clyde, "the enemy being pushed back into a separate island, so to speak," says Tacitus; and thus he initiated the barrier of Antoninus Pius.

After Agricola's victory over the Britons at Mount Graupius, in 85 A.D., the Emperor Domitian, jealous of his successful generalship, recalled him to Rome. Tacitus says that he "handed over a peaceful and safe province to his successor." His seven years' rule had been so fruitful that one cannot help wondering how much he would have achieved if he had been allowed to continue his work of tranquil colonization, and his conquest over the affections of the people of Britain. He was only forty-five when recalled to Rome, and nine years later he died, poisoned, as is thought, by the still jealous Emperor.

Tacitus cannot pity him: "The true blessings of life which lie in character he had fulfilled"; and he closes his essay with these magnificent lines, so often quoted and so eternally true, whether spoken of the avowed Christian, or of the so-called pagan, who has practised Christian virtues in a Christian spirit, and in doing so has indeed been led by the Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world:

"Vain alike and passing is the face of man and the similitude thereof; only the fashion of the soul remains, to be known and shown not through alien substances and arts, but in your very life and walk. Whatever we have loved in Agricola, whatever we have admired, abides, and will abide, in the hearts of men, in the procession of the ages, in the records of history. Many of the ancients has Forgetfulness engulfed as though fame nor name were theirs: Agricola, whose story here is told, will outlive death, to be our children's heritage."

And as, looking southwards from the line of the Wall, we trace the course of his road and note the positions of his forts, we also can be grateful for his upright life and his disinterested service.

Nerva succeeded Domitian, and was in his turn succeeded by Trajan, who reigned till 117 A.D. At about this date the forts of Agricola, which had held the country for thirty years, were entirely swamped during a great native rising. The Ninth { 14} Legion, then stationed at York, disappears from history, having been annihilated by the Britons.

And next comes Hadrian, the actual inventor of the Roman frontier system. He became Emperor in 117 A.D., and initiated his policy in Britain about two years later. It is now generally agreed that he was responsible for the works of the Vallum, as well as for the Stone Wall, with its forts, mile-castles and turrets.

Here was an Emperor who lived no life of self-indulgent ease, nor used his imperial rank merely to serve his own private ends.

He was indefatigable in his journeyings through his empire, to reorganize and reform. Every province came under his personal supervision, and traces of his activity are to be met with everywhere. He was also undoubtedly a great builder. The largest temple ever erected in Rome, the temple of Venus and Roma, owes its origin to him, as also do the Pantheon and the Castle of St. Angelo. He was therefore quite capable of conceiving and carrying out such a project as the Great Wall.

He visited Britain in person, towards the close of 121 A.D., or early in 122, but the works were only completed after he had left, under the direction of Aulus Platorius Nepos, his proprætor.

Antoninus Pius succeeded Hadrian in 138 A.D. He was himself a man of peace, and left the settlement of disturbances to his provincial governors. { 15} Under him Lollius Urbicus built the turf wall between the Firths of Forth and Clyde, along the line of the forts of Agricola. This is known as the Antonine Wall. In mediæval times it was called Grahame's Dyke.

Britain was very disturbed from 161 A.D. to 193 A.D. during the reigns of Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher, and his son and successor, Commodus. The Wall and its forts and turrets suffered much during this period.

Under Septimius Severus there was still trouble, and the Emperor came over in person, in 208 A.D., bringing with him his sons Antoninus and Geta. The former is usually called Caracalla, from a Gallic mantle which he had made fashionable in Rome. Severus was an African by birth, and a soldier by profession, having risen from the ranks, but he was a splendid administrator. On arriving in Britain, he collected troops, repaired the roads, and rebuilt, where necessary, the forts and the Wall.

Then we have a pathetic picture of the old Emperor, hampered by gout, and obliged to be carried in a litter or a closed chair, distracted by the quarrels and ambition of his sons, and yet advancing far into the enemy's country, under inconceivable difficulties, and with a great loss of men. Finally he died at York, in 211 A.D., "worn out with sorrow more than with disease." It is said of him that he had "a greater tenderness for his children { 16} than for the republic;" and yet it was no secret that his elder son had once endeavoured to stab him in the back, and, failing, had tried to bribe his physicians to poison him. On their father's death the sons returned to Rome, to succeed him, but in less than a year the elder had contrived the murder of the younger.

The inscribed stones which have been found bring out very clearly that Severus left behind him an impulse towards the restoration of the Wall and its forts which continued until 240 A.D.

Britain was now left to herself. Rome was too much occupied with troubles at home to pay much heed to her island province, and peaceful conditions prevailed.

Taking advantage of Rome's preoccupation, Carausius, who had charge of a Roman fleet, under Diocletian, to repress the Saxon pirates, betrayed his trust, and assumed the sovereignty of Britain in 287 A.D. For six years he ruled an independent kingdom, to be betrayed, in his turn, and murdered by his minister Allectus, who succeeded him. Three years later Rome resumed her authority, and Allectus was slain.

Constantine is accused by the historian Zosimus of having withdrawn the soldiers from the forts of Britain to the towns, where they became effeminate. Now Emperor succeeded Emperor in rapid succession. Soon Rome had all she could do to keep { 17} the Goths at bay; and, in 410 A.D., Honorius wrote to the Britons to tell them they must look to themselves for safety.

Experts differ as to when the Romans actually abandoned the island, but it is safe to say that it was early in the fifth century.

Rome's hold on Britain had thus lasted nearly four centuries; and when we remember that it is not much more than four centuries since Columbus discovered America, we can better realize how thoroughly Roman in that period the island and the people must have become.

"Under the Pax Romana , established by Agricola," writes Mr. H. Rushton Fairclough in Art and Archæology , Vol. I. No. 2, "Roman temples, forums, dwelling-houses, baths and porticoes had sprung up everywhere; and, above all, Roman schools, where the youth of the land learnt with pride to adopt the tongue and dress of the conquerors." And this was when more than three centuries of Roman rule were yet to come!

CHAPTER III

DESCRIPTIVE

3. An earthwork known as "The Vallum," consisting of a deep central ditch and two (frequently three and sometimes four) earthern mounds, running always to the south of the Wall and its fortifications.

Excavations and inscriptions have now pretty well established the order and the period in which the different parts were constructed, and it appears to have been as follows:

1. Agricola built a series of forts (including Corbridge and Carlisle) across the isthmus, about 79 A.D., with a road, afterwards known as the Stanegate, connecting them.

2. Hadrian first built a new line of forts a short distance to the north of the Stanegate line.

Fig. 1.—Section showing the relative positions of the Stone Wall, the Vallum and the Military Way.

3. Hadrian then constructed the Vallum, as a limes or boundary, slightly to the south of these forts, yet everywhere north of the older line of Agricola.

4. Hadrian finally built the Great Wall, linking up the new forts and including a mile-castle every seven furlongs, and two wall-turrets between every pair of mile-castles. He also made a road from castle to castle, and so from fort to fort—122-127 A.D. This great Stone Wall, was the last word in the defensive problem. The original scheme, of forts and Vallum, had failed to ensure the safety of the frontier; and the necessity for a continuous barrier had become evident.

So it came about that the Wall was built. In the course of its building, the Vallum with its deep ditch and high mounds would form a continuous obstacle to the free passage of workers and building materials coming from the south. To obviate this difficulty, the mounds of the Vallum were cut through and the ditch was filled up at frequent intervals, to form temporary level-crossings.

5. After the Great Wall was completed, the Vallum-ditch was cleared where necessary, and the clearings from the ditch were thrown up as an additional mound on the south margin of the ditch. This indicates that the Vallum still represented a boundary: no longer, indeed, to the enemy, for the Wall was now their boundary, but to the civil { 21} population of the province of Britain. North of the Vallum was now a military district, "out of bounds" for civilians.

6. Severus reconstructed great portions of the Wall and forts, which had been thrown down by the enemy—207-210 A.D.

It is thus clear that most of the work which we see was originally designed by Hadrian in the second century.

It would serve no purpose for me to go into all the older arguments and theories as to who was the builder of the Wall, and what was the object of the Vallum, but I have endeavoured to give the latest views, based on the most recent discoveries.

As is well known, archæologists do not now aim at finding objects, but rather at learning history and fixing dates. Especially do they aim at dating the various levels of occupation by means of the pottery fragments found there—a method unheard-of when excavations were first begun on the Wall. Much still remains to be done in this direction.

The evidence in favour of Hadrian's having been the builder of the Wall is now so strong as to be irrefutable. In four mile-castles have been found slabs bearing his name and that of his proprætor, Aulus Platorius Nepos. The name of Severus has not been found at all on the actual line of the Wall.

A bronze purse of coins was found hidden in a quarry on Barcombe during the last century. { 22} There were no coins later than the time of Hadrian; and, since the purse was probably hidden in his reign by a worker in the quarry, this evidence would point to Hadrian as a builder in stone, and not merely the constructor of the Vallum, as some have thought.

"Through the high part of Cumberland shooteth that most famous Wall (in no case to be passed over in silence) the limit of the Roman Province, the Barbarian Rampier, the Forefence and Enclosure, for so the ancients termed it, being called * * * by Antonine, Cassiodore, and others, Vallum, that is, the Rampier; by Bede, Murus, that is, the Wall; by the Britons, Gual-Sever, Gal-Sever, Bal, Val, and Mur-Sever; by the Scottish, Scottish-waith; by the English, and those that dwell there-about, the Picts Wall, or the Pehits Wall, the Keepe Wall, and simply by way of excellencie, The Wall."

Throughout this book we will call the stone Wall "simply by way of excellencie," the Wall, referring to the other parts of the fortifications, the Vallum, forts, mile-castles and turrets, by their several names.

And, before going farther, I may as well confess the true state of my affections, for I am sure to be { 23} found out sooner or later. The Wall, "simply by way of excellencie," is my real love; the Vallum only takes a very secondary place.

I love the Wall for its aspiring nature, always keeping to the very tops of the hills, when there are any hills to be had, while the Vallum creeps sluggishly along in the low land.

I love the Wall for the way in which it overcomes obstacles, never swerving from its determination to keep to the highest at all costs, while the Vallum allows itself to be turned aside to the south by even such a little obstacle as Down Hill.

And I love the Wall for the sense of strength which it gives, even in its present battered condition, a sense of strength and solidity which no number of ditches and earth mounds could ever give. Earth mounds (of a sort) can be made by earth-worms; for stone walls it takes men!

I love the Wall because I can picture it, manned by the soldiers of the cohorts, as a living thing, all eyes and ears; a link from sea to sea; a chain of forts and turrets threaded on a single string!

And I love it because of its plain straightforward purpose. No one ever doubts what it was meant to be or to do; whereas the object of the Vallum is still to some extent a matter of conjecture, over which wordy battles may be fought.

And I love the Wall because it lends itself to being painted, while the Vallum stubbornly refuses to { 24} look anything but insignificant in a picture, however imposing it may be when examined on the spot.

Lastly and chiefly, I love the Wall because of the symbol it presents of a firm stand and a patient, faithful, conscientious, tireless watch against the enemy; no risks taken, no pains spared, no loopholes left. It is to me a symbol of vigilance and endurance.

I know that I am self-condemned in the eyes of the archæologist for having such a preference, for is not the Vallum older than the Wall, and does not that in itself constitute an unimpeachable claim to superiority?

But I am not an archæologist; I am only an artist with a taste for archæology, and that is why I fall so far short of the true standard.

The Wall stretches all the way from Wallsend-on-Tyne, 4½ miles east of Newcastle, to Bowness-on-Solway, a distance of 73½ miles; and the Vallum runs alongside of it, on the south, from Newcastle to Dykesfield, in Cumberland, a distance of about 66 miles.

The original height of the Wall was at least 12 feet to the rampart walk, so that it was probably 18 to 20 feet high, including the battlements.

Bede, writing from his monastery at Jarrow, opposite Wallsend, somewhere about 700 A.D., says:

"It is eight feet in breadth, and twelve in height, { 25} in a straight line from east to west, as is still visible to beholders." He probably did not include the battlements.

"As touching Hadrian's Wall, begyning abowt a town called Bonus standing vppon the river Sulway now called Eden, and there yet standing of the heyth of 16 fote, for almost a quarter of a myle together, and so along the river syde estwards."

"Within two furlongs of Caervoran, on a pretty high hill the Wall is still standing, fifteen feet in height, and nine in breadth."

The breadth of the Wall is about 9 feet 6 inches at the foundation, and varies between 6 and 8 feet at the top. Dr. Bruce says: "Probably the prevailing width is 8 feet." The northern face is continuous, but the southern face has many offsets and insets, measuring from 4 to 12 inches, where variations in the width of the Wall have occurred. It is thought, therefore, that the work was done { 26} in sections, simultaneously, and that each superintending centurion was allowed to exercise his own judgment as to the width.

This brings us to what are known as "centurial stones," many of which are found along the line of the Wall. The inscription on these stones is always preceded by a reversed C, thus [reversed C], or an angle, thus, >, which indicates Centuria . It seems probable that they were set into the Wall to indicate that a particular section was built by troops under the command of such-and-such a centurion. The centurial sign is always followed by a name.

A deep V-shaped ditch defended the Wall all the way on the north side, except where it was protected by natural precipices. This ditch, at its greatest, was about 15 feet deep and 40 feet across at the top. It must have greatly added to the formidable appearance of the Wall on the side presented to the enemy.

No matter what the character of the material to be excavated, the ditch clings closely to the Wall on all the lower ground. It is hewn through basalt, sandstone and limestone with equal indifference.

The Wall is constructed in the method usual with the Romans; that is to say, it consists of a rubble core mixed with mortar, faced on each side by masonry blocks. The stone used for the facing is a species of sandstone. The size of the blocks { 27} is very regular: 8 or 9 inches by 10 or 11 inches on the face, and sometimes as much as 20 inches long. The length is tapered off to form a wedge-shape, so as to bind well into the core of the Wall. After a little practice, one can readily recognize the Wall stones where they have been made use of in later buildings and in fences.

The front surface of the stones is often tooled in a rough pattern, with diagonal lines, known as "diamond broaching," or with waved lines, known as "feather broaching." The latter has been held to be specially characteristic of Severus's work of reconstruction.

The Wall was built on a foundation of flat flagstones, laid on the rock. Upon these, one or two courses of facing-stones were set in place, and into the intervening space was poured a mass of fluid mortar. Rough stones of any shape—chiefly whinstones—were then introduced into the mortar, which, when dry, bound all together in one solid mass. So course after course was added until the required height was reached.

On gently undulating ground the courses of the Wall keep parallel to the surface of the ground; on steep slopes the courses are laid horizontally.

The colour of the stone is very varied; individual stones are brownish, yellowish, reddish, grey; and the general impression varies also because the stone has not always "weathered" in the same way.

Like the Great Wall of China, the Wall disregards obstacles, climbs hills, and crosses valleys and streams, choosing always the greatest possible heights to traverse.

"Verily, I have seene the tract of it, over the high pitches and steepe descents of hills wonderfully rising and falling."

It is set for the most part in very beautiful surroundings, sometimes in the peaceful and fertile lowlands, sometimes on the lonely barren hills, with wide vistas stretching out to north and south. The highest hill it climbs is Winshields, 1230 feet high.

Unlike the Great Wall of China, it has suffered much at the hands of the destroyer, and for miles together scarcely a trace is to be seen. In the more or less populated districts it has been used as a quarry, and farm-houses, churches, and pele-towers have been built with its stones. For 19 miles out of Newcastle the road (made by General Wade in 1753, from Newcastle to Carlisle) runs chiefly on the foundations of the Wall, and much of the Wall was pulled down then, to give place to "military necessities." This road I shall in future refer to as "Wade's Road."

THE WALL SEEN FROM CUDDY'S CRAG.
HERE FOR A LONG DISTANCE IT IS EASY TO WALK ALONG THE TOP
OF THE WALL, WHICH IS 8 FEET WIDE, AND 5 OR 6 FEET HIGH.

The Wall is best preserved on the lonely heights, as at Borcovicium, where in parts it may be seen going up hill and down dale, at its original width { 29} of 8 feet, and 5 or 6 feet high. The greatest height of any fragment still standing is 9 feet 10 inches, at Hare Hill, Banks, in Cumberland.

The forts along the Wall, or "stations," as they are sometimes called, are military cities, set at an average distance of five miles apart, with barracks, storehouses, baths, etc., and very often with suburbs outside the enclosing wall.

The clue to the names of the forts has been found in a document which has fitly been called the "Who's Who" of the later Roman Empire. This document is known as the Notitia ; and the section which refers to the Wall is headed, Item per lineam Vatti . Then follows a list of all the forts along the Wall, with the name of the body of troops stationed at each. There are twenty-three on the list, and only the first twelve have been satisfactorily identified—as follows:

The means of identification has been by altars or other inscribed stones found on the spot. For instance, at Housesteads was found an altar with this inscription:

"To Jupiter, the best and greatest, and the deities of Augustus, the first cohort of the Tungrians (a military one) commanded by Quintus Verius Superstis, præfect."

At Carrawburgh there was found a stone of the date 237 A.D., with the words "COH · I · BATAVORUM" very clearly inscribed. At Chesterholm more than one altar has been found inscribed "COH · IIII · GALLORVM."

At Walwick Chesters was found an important slab declaring that "the [soldiers] of the second ala (or cavalry regiment) of Asturians restored [this temple which had fallen down] through age."

At Great Chesters a roofing slab was found stamped "COH · I · ASTVR," besides other inscriptions.

So also at Carvoran and Birdoswald there is abundant confirmation of the Notitia statement.

The largest fort is Amboglanna, 5½ acres; the smallest is at Drumburgh, ¾ of an acre, an exceptionally small site.

The mile-castles or castella were placed at the distance of one Roman mile, or seven furlongs, from each other. They vary in size, but are roughly about 60 feet by 50. The Wall forms their north { 32} wall; their east and west walls are bonded into the Wall, so they were evidently built at the same time as the Wall. Their southern angles have been rounded off outside, though rectangular within.

There has always been a massive gateway to the north and to the south, with a central road between, and inner buildings on either side of it.

There were two Wall turrets between each pair of mile-castles. They were sentry-boxes, recessed into the great Wall, with walls 3 feet thick, and measuring about 12 feet by 10.

The Romans always had a military way accompanying their fortifications. The Stanegate, made by Agricola, has a foundation of cobbles bedded in clay, and on that is a layer of cobbles or gravel, considerably raised in the middle. Kerbstones on either side mark its limits. It is now certain, through work done, that the paved military road which accompanies the Wall extended for its whole distance, running along between the Wall and the Vallum. It is about 18 feet wide, and can be very frequently recognized by its curved surface and stone kerbs, although it is grass-grown. The modern field-gates are very often placed upon it.

CHAPTER IV

THE VALLUM

The Emperor Hadrian decided that his new frontier should be defended by a chain of new forts, and that a great ditch—the Vallum-ditch—should be dug across the island, along the line of these forts, to mark the boundary of the Roman Province of Britain. This would be quite consistent with his usual policy of limiting the extent of the Roman Provinces in order to strengthen his hold on what it was most important to retain. By keeping to the south of the chain of forts, the ditch would come under their protection.

That the ditch, and not the mounds, was the objective is pretty certain, for the ditch was made continuous at all costs, while the mounds were afterwards subject to trespass by the road, by quarries, by a mile-castle etc.

The mounds are the upcast from the ditch, not thrown up on the very edge of the ditch, for then rain and other causes would soon have combined { 34} to fill the ditch again, but carried some 24 feet away, leaving a flat safety platform, known as a "berm," on each side, between the ditch and the mound. Thus the mounds had the effect of making the ditch appear deeper, and yet had no great tendency to fall back again into it. The mounds are not the mere upcast from the ditch; sods, and sometimes stones are laid as kerbs to strengthen them, and keep them from settling down on themselves.

A subsidiary mound to the south of the ditch is often found, covering a portion of the berm. This is now known to be no part of the original scheme, but to consist of a later clearing of the ditch. Sometimes there are two subsidiary mounds, one to the north as well.

In this connection, three important points have been noted by Mr. F. G. Simpson and Dr. R. C. Shaw.

1. That there are ancient causeways across the Vallum-ditch in some parts of its course, where the ditch has been quite filled up level with the berms.

2. That wherever these causeways occur, gaps occur, opposite the causeways, in the Vallum-mounds; and this suggests that a passage-way has been cut through the mounds, and that the earth removed has been used for filling up the ditch at the same point, so as to make a roadway right across the earth-work.

3. That in many cases gaps occur in the mounds where there are no corresponding causeways across the ditch; but it is just in these regions that the subsidiary mound is found. Where there are causeways, there is no subsidiary mound.

The deduction is that when the causeways had served their purpose the ditch was cleared again, and the clearings were cast up to form the marginal mound; but nothing was done to fill up the gaps, because the ditch was the only consideration.

Excavations have all tended to support this theory. The causeways were evidently made not long after the digging of the ditch, because the ditch is not silted up under the cast-up rubbish of which the causeways are formed; and everywhere else in the Vallum-ditch there is a depth of 3 or 4 feet of silt.

Gaps occur in the Vallum-mounds all along the line to beyond Carlisle, with great regularity (as if they had some set purpose) and generally about 45 yards apart. The explanation suggested is that nearly all the stone and building-materials needed for building the Wall and repairing the forts had to be brought from beyond the Vallum; that thousands of men, employed in bringing materials, would be constantly passing over the mounds and ditch of the Vallum. Hence the need for causeways and gaps.

We can imagine the men would get impatient { 37} at having to climb a mound, descend into a ditch, and then climb another mound at each journey north or south. And if rough carts were used, a causeway would be a necessity. By degrees continuous traffic would of itself sink a path across the mounds; and what would be easier than to make deliberate gaps and fill up the ditch with the soil?

The Romans were a methodical people, and in undertaking an enormous work like the Wall they would certainly have points, at regular distances apart, to which building materials had to be brought. The only difficulty in the theory seems to be that a gap every 45 yards could hardly be necessary.

Supposing this theory to be correct, then the Vallum is older than the Wall and its contemporary buildings, but very little older. It has already been proved that the Vallum is not older than the original forts, because it always curves round to the south when it approaches a fort, in order to avoid it.

The Stone Wall appears to have been an after-thought, found necessary for the final solution of the defensive problem.

It has long been a question whether there was not originally a turf-wall right across the island, thrown up hastily to mark out the course of the Stone Wall, and as a temporary defence, and then gradually replaced by the Stone Wall. The presence of a piece of turf-wall, more than a mile long, between Birdoswald and Wallbowers, running north of the { 38} Vallum and south of the Stone Wall, has to be accounted for; and for two reasons it seems probable that this was only a temporary structure: first, because there is no carefully-laid stone foundation under the turves, as is the case with the Antonine Wall; secondly, because no military way accompanies it, and the Romans always had a road accompanying their fortifications.

Mr. Simpson thinks this particular stretch represents a mistake in the laying out of the works, because it is so close to the Vallum that a mile-castle could not have been built at the usual position: which mistake was corrected by the Stone Wall, but the fruits of which it was not thought necessary to remove.

Or—another theory—this turf-wall may have been a temporary local barrier, thrown up during some interruption of the building of the Stone Wall. It is certain that the turf-wall is the earlier, for where it ends, at Wallbowers, its ditch goes under the Stone Wall, and had to be filled up when the Stone Wall was built.

CHAPTER V

THE WALK: WALLSEND TO WALBOTTLE

I decided to begin my walk at the Newcastle end because I thought it would be the least interesting part, and I wanted to get it over. However, it proved far more interesting than I expected.

I reached Newcastle from King's Cross at five o'clock on a May morning, and, booking my luggage, I started off at once, knapsack on back, for Wallsend.

The sun had risen, and though the houses hid it, rosy clouds that faced me proclaimed its presence as I turned eastwards.

Along Collingwood Street I went, across Pilgrim Street, then under the railway-arch which crosses City Road; and there, on my right, were the ruins of the old Sallyport gateway, which stand near—if not on—the line of the wall.

Then past "St. Dominic's Priory," with its modern buildings and prosaic brass-plate, to Byker Bridge, over the valley of the Ouseburn, which appears to be all valley and very little burn. At first I searched { 40} in vain for any sign of water; I saw only a valley full of rubbish. And the stony bed of the little stream contained even more broken crockery than stones.

Byker Hill followed, lined with small shops. I sighed as I remembered what it had looked like in the eighteenth century. For before "industrial necessities" claimed it (as shown in Dr. Bruce's third edition) it was a country road with a picturesque windmill on the hill, a large piece of Wall still standing, and a beautiful view of the city and the Tower of St. Nicholas' Church (now the Cathedral) in the distance!

Turning to the left along Shields Road, I was amused to see an old woman, in dirty apron and grey shawl, going round knocking at much be-curtained windows on the ground floor with a small hammer: "Lizzie, it's well-nigh six o'clock"; "Mary, it's time ye riz;" and so on, at house after house. It was my first sight of a "knocker-up."

The misty valley of the Tyne began to show on my right, with clusters of chimneys peering through the mist. I thought Shields Road would never end; but it brought me to Wallsend at last. There I turned to the right, and lighted at once on Hadrian Street! And, spying an "inscribed stone" on a building opposite, I crossed over, and this is what I read:

"The Eastern Gateway of
the Roman Camp of
SEGEDUNUM
stood about twenty yards
to the south of this spot
and remains of it were found
when this house was built
Anno Domini 1912."

The building is Simpson's Hotel, Wallsend. And so I really had reached the Wall's End (although for me it was the Wall's Beginning) in the midst of a wilderness of houses.

There are drawings in Newcastle which show the south-east angle of Segedunum in 1848, with grassy banks, and trees, and a peaceful river, and not a house to be seen.

I wandered down towards the Tyne now, to get an idea of where that south-east angle must have been, but it seemed hopeless, with buildings crowded thickly together as they are. There should be a stone to mark the site, but I did not find it. The Wall ran down from this corner right into the river, just as it did at the other end, into the Solway, at Bowness, to cut off the passage of an enemy.

While part of Messrs. Swan & Hunter's shipyard was being levelled, prior to the building of the Mauretania , this part of the Wall was discovered, not far from the river-bank. The Carpathia was "completing" at the time at the same yard, and several Wall-stones were placed in the saloon in a glass case.

I turned westward along Hadrian Street, past the row of houses called "The Roman Wall," and made for the farm-house of Old Walker. The Wall-ditch can be seen at intervals, and fragments of the core; and I could recognize Wall-stones in the farm-house. I saw no signs of mile-castles, though there should be two before we reach Byker Hill, nor did I trace any further signs of Wall, though I followed its course as I had come—by the Priory, Sallyport Gate, Wall Knoll, Pilgrim Street, and St. Nicholas' Church (the Cathedral), of which Leland says, writing about 1539: "S. Nicolas Chirch in Newcastel stondith on the Picth Waulle."

Newcastle was the second fort on the line, the fort of PONS AELII, so-called from the bridge which Hadrian, who was of the Ælian family, built across the Tyne. The present Swing Bridge marks the site of Hadrian's Bridge, which appears to have lasted, with various repairs, till 1248 A.D. Traces of the old Roman piers have been found. The exact site of the fort of Pons Aelii has not been ascertained.

From the railway station at Newcastle, the line of the Wall is up Westgate Hill, on the very road itself; and the Vallum ran parallel to it, along the south side of the road, as is shown in a drawing by H. B. Richardson, made in 1848, before the houses were built there. No traces of either are now to be seen.

In a nurseryman's garden on the right, as I neared Benwell Hill, I noticed a very beautiful head, evidently of Roman workmanship. It was only a mask, with a little drapery hanging from it, and might have served as the keystone of an arch. The laughing eyes looked downwards, the mouth slightly open with a gentle smile, the hair parted in the middle, and brought in waves rather low over the forehead. There was very delicate modelling about the mouth. I went up to the house, and asked to be allowed to make a drawing of this head. The nurseryman's wife told me that her husband's grandfather had dug it up in his ground { 44} as well as other Roman treasures. She showed me a tiny Roman altar, no more than a small stone bowl with a foot, in which she said many a Christian baby had been baptized. They used to send over and borrow it for baptisms at the mission opposite. It had been dark in colour once, like the head, but she had scrubbed it till it was quite light.

The fonts of the churches at Haydon Bridge and at Chollerton have both been Roman altars.

So here we have pagan altars adapted to Christian uses, just as we have pagan festivals in the Church's calendar; and pagan marriage and funeral customs, borrowed from Rome, and used in the Christian Church even to the present day.

After sketching the smiling lady, and finding her fascination grow in the process, I continued my way up the hill, until I saw on the right a large reservoir, and on the left three private houses, known as Condercum, Condercum House, and Pendower. Here the road cuts right across the site of the Roman fort of CONDERCUM, the third on the line.

The gardener at Pendower was busy just inside the gate, so I inquired about the Roman remains, and he readily consented to show me what was to be seen. He led me past mighty rhododendrons, in full bloom, to the southern side of the garden, where what was evidently a fine piece of the southern wall of the fort was still standing, some 30 feet long. { 45} overgrown with London pride and bluebells, and shadowed by beautiful trees. Part of a lintel lay amongst the stones.

Hearing that I was "walking the Wall," the gardener recommended to me the Temperance Hotel at Matfen, kept by some friends of his, and I made a note of it for future use, and now pass on the recommendation to my readers. Accommodation along the Wall is not too easy to get. Matfen is a very pretty village, 2 miles north of the Wall, at a point 14 miles west of Newcastle.

The gardener pointed out to me, over the dividing fence, the foundations of the little temple in the grounds of Condercum House, to which I next made my way. Here another friendly gardener came to my aid, and I saw the temple at close quarters, with its stone pavement, circular apse, and solemn grouping of yew-trees round the apsidal end. These yews were evidently planted soon after the temple was excavated, some forty years ago. There was a rough stone head of the Sun-god, and there were mill-stones "for the women to grind the sacred corn during the temple-services"—so said my guide. Two altars, which stood in their places at the ends of the apse when the building was uncovered, are now in the Blackgate Museum, Newcastle.

The eastern wall of the fort runs through these grounds. I was told that some of the Roman { 46} masonry had been knocked down by soldiers who occupied the house during the recent war, and that it had been very unsatisfactorily replaced by masons.

The family was away, so the gardener let me roam about by myself; and in a sunny meadow sloping down towards the Tyne, I found distinct traces of the suburban buildings of the fort. The Vallum is here recognizable for the first time, towards the south.

And now to return to the road. Hutton says of the Wall in this part: "Its bare stones under my feet are frequently distinguishable from those used for mending the road." But the tarred surface for motor-cars has quite obliterated every sign of the old stones now.

It was getting very hot when I left Condercum, and this same tarred surface made walking rather trying, for in many places it had become soft and sticky with the heat, and not even the path on either side had been left free. At some points the very gutters ran with tar. There was no shade from trees overhead, except at long intervals; it was "the hottest day of the year," as the papers said next day, though as yet it wanted an hour or so of noon. But I trudged on, inspired by my quest, and well knowing that my first day was bound to be my worst day, compelled, as I was, to keep to the hard high road. For 19 miles out of Newcastle { 47} the road runs mainly upon the foundations of the Wall.

A steep hill, Benwell Hill, leads down from Condercum to East Denton. It was on this hill that John Wesley, with his step-daughter and grand-children, had a narrow escape from injury or death. The horses took fright, and ran away, dashing through a closed gate as if it had been a cobweb, and then across a corn-field. The little girls were terrified, but Wesley writes: "I told them, 'Nothing will hurt you; do not be afraid'; feeling no more fear or care than if I had been sitting in my study." The horses stopped suddenly, just on the brink of a precipice.

At the bottom of the hill, the road crosses Denton Burn, once a pretty stream, but now dry; I saw only a dirty green puddle in which a dirty brown sparrow was trying to bathe. Just before the burn, on the left, a stile leads to the very first piece of Wall which appears above ground. It is only a few paces south of the road, and has been enclosed by a wooden fence, but a mere fraction of the fence was left; the rest had apparently been stolen for firewood. This piece of Wall is 9½ feet wide. When Hutton saw it, it was 36 feet long, and had an apple-tree growing on it. There is much less left now, and even the dead trunk of the apple-tree has gone.

Mounting the opposite hill, I soon came to Denton { 48} Hall, a ghost-haunted old house on the right, built of Wall-stones in 1503 by the monks of Tynemouth, as a summer residence. A few sculptured stones from the Wall are to be seen in the hall. Mrs. Elizabeth Montague, "The Queen of the Blue Stocking," lived there from 1760, and entertained many distinguished guests.

Now I felt that I had at last got beyond Newcastle. The fields were golden with buttercups; the may-trees were masses of pearly white; beneath them the cattle stood drowsily in the heat; and away in the distance the hills south of the Tyne lost themselves in a blue haze.

Opposite Denton Hall, the core of the Wall can be seen, and the Vallum, running along the bottom of the meadow.

CHAPTER VI

WALBOTTLE TO EAST WALLHOUSES

The first indication of a mile-castle I noted in a field on the left, just before reaching the lodge of West Denton House. It was just a daisy-covered mound, as I saw it, with cows lying about on it.

I pushed on up the hill towards Walbottle (A.S. botel , an abode; the abode on the Wall), with the Wall-ditch running alongside. At the top there is a beautiful view across the valley of the Tyne. The painter Martin, a native of Haydon Bridge, is said to have made it the basis of his picture, "The Plains of Heaven."

Walbottle is now an unattractive colliery village, whatever it may have been in Saxon times. There were many colliers about, for the strike was on, and I saw women and children searching in the rubbish at the pit-heads for scraps of coal.

At the Engine Inn at Walbottle I was able to get a bottle of lemonade, and was also plentifully supplied with soap and water in the back-kitchen by the kindly landlady. So I went on my way much refreshed.

Soon I came to Walbottle Dene House, a farm-house on the right, in the front garden of which are the splendid remains of the northern gateway of a mile-castle, the first mile-castle to be seen uncovered. The course of the road was altered here to avoid injury to this mile-castle after it had been excavated. The huge stones can be easily seen by looking over the low garden wall.

Wall-stones appear in the hedge on the right a little farther on; and then comes Walbottle Dene, a steep little ravine, with paths traversing its tree-covered sides, green with ferns and fresh spring foliage, and the Newburn flowing through at the bottom.

In the mining village of Throckley, I saw crowds collected for a funeral. The miners on strike were sitting in rows on the path opposite the house, dressed in their Sunday clothes, to do honour to their neighbour. A late-comer overtook me, and said as he passed: "A hot day." I said: "Yes; I am glad it is fine for your holiday." From that we came to the question of the strike (as I had intended), and the respective claims of the owners and the miners. He told me he had been in every trade you can name, and coal-mining was the worst. I said: "Then why are you in it now?" and he replied: "Because of the pay." He then described to me the unhealthiness and the dangers of a miner's life, and to emphasize it he said: "You { 51} should compare what these men are now with what they looked like six weeks ago; why, they are not the same men!" He drew such a vivid picture of the hardships, that I said, in all good faith: "Oh, if only a substitute could be found for coal!" But there I found he did not agree with me at all, any more than the owners would have done.

It is a truism that there must be something wrong with a society in which the workers in a disagreeable and dangerous calling would not have it made less dangerous because the very danger gives them a claim to higher wages. They are used to the danger, and they are used to the wages; they would rather keep both! And who can blame them, things being as they are? Perhaps some day we may reach a condition of society in which every labour-saving device, or danger-averting discovery, will bless the whole of the community, and penalize none. This must surely come about in proportion as we learn to think of mankind as "one body," and to see that if one member suffers, every member is bound to suffer with it.

My miner-friend took my remarks very good-temperedly, and joined the groups seated on the ground as soon as we came up to them.

Opposite the Filter-beds at Throckley, I turned off on the left, through an inviting-looking green { 52} meadow, and, crossing the Vallum, sat down under some trees to rest. A man and a boy were busy chopping and carting logs of wood in the little plantation near me—another sign of the coal-strike. Soon after returning to the road I saw traces of another mile-castle.

All this time the Wall-ditch can be traced on the right for the greater part of the way, and the Vallum on the left, at varying distances from the road, about 30 to 50 yards. At the top of the hill leading down to Heddon-on-the-Wall, both the Wall-ditch and the Vallum are a delight to the eye which has perhaps hitherto been tempted to see them as monotonous. Both ditches are cut through the sandstone rock. This was a specially good place for testing the shape of the Vallum-ditch, and sections made in 1893 proved it to be flat-bottomed and not V-shaped, just as it was later found to be along its whole length.

A little way down the hill, by climbing into the field on the left, we can see the Wall, 5 or 6 courses high, and, built into it, an interesting circular chamber of unknown use, 7 feet in diameter. The Vallum-ditch is here only 35 yards to the south.

As I entered Heddon, my thoughts began to turn towards refreshment, but the only available place for a meal looked so uninviting that I passed on. It was early-closing day in all the villages I had come through, so no shops had been open { 53} after one o'clock, and I had let that hour slip by without knowing what a crucial hour it was.

John Wesley was preaching near Horsley in 1755. It was a noted centre of Nonconformity, because it fulfilled the necessary condition for meeting-places (required then by law) of being "more than 5 miles from a parish church."

" Wednesday , 21 May 1755.—I preached at Nafferton, near Horsley, about 13 miles from Newcastle. We rode chiefly on the new western road, which lies on the old Roman Wall. Some part of this is still to be seen, as are the remains of most of the towers, which were built a mile distant from each other, quite from sea to sea. But where are the men of renown who built them, and who once made all the land tremble? Crumbled into dust! Gone hence, to be no more seen, till the earth shall give up her dead!"

The next fort on the line of the Wall is VINDOBALA, and the farm-house of Rudchester stands close to its site.

When I was only a mile from this place a large motor-lorry passed me, going at full speed. To my surprise, it stopped suddenly in front of me, and when I came up to it, the driver kindly offered me a lift. I was indeed sorry to decline. The hill { 54} was steep in front of me, and I had already walked about 16 miles, not counting digressions; but in any case I could only have travelled as far as Rudchester, for I did not want to miss seeing Vindobala. And then, I did want to walk every foot of the way, from sea to sea! So I resisted the tempter, though thanking him sincerely, and he was soon out of sight.

The road was very much pleasanter here, shaded by trees or by high green hedges, and with grassy strips to walk upon.

At Rudchester the house and farm-buildings lie a little way off the road, on the left, and are all well to the south of the site of the fort. A lane crosses the road at right-angles, and the entrance to the farm is a little way down this lane. Buoyed up with hopes of tea, I made my way there first; not to the "big house," but to a smaller one, where I found the farm-bailiff (as I suppose) and his sister had just finished their tea. They most kindly asked me in, and the sister said the kettle was boiling, and she could soon "make some fresh." They had only just moved in, and had no idea that there was any special archæological interest attached to the place. When I inquired about the Roman "Station," the sister said: "Would it be Wylam Station ye're wanting?" referring to the nearest railway station, 2 miles to the south. When I had had tea (and how welcome it was!) she took { 55} me to the "big house." The master was away, but the housekeeper showed me the drawing-room fireplace, where a centurial stone from the Wall forms what was once the actual hearth on which the fire was kindled. It plainly shows the marks of fire. Now a modern grate has been fitted in above it.

Like most of the houses along this line, on the south it has a sunny garden sloping towards the Tyne valley, with a glorious widespread view, such as one would not expect on seeing the house from the road.

They took me through the garden, and then through a plantation, to see the "Giant's Grave," a trough cut out of the solid rock, 12 feet long, 4½ feet wide, and 2 feet deep; and the housekeeper held stoutly to the opinion that its original purpose had been the brewing of beer. "Giant's Grave, indeed!" said she; "better call it the Giant's Bath!"

Before leaving, I traced the general outlines of the fort. With its southern gateway and ramparts, { 56} it can be easily made out, between the farm-buildings and the road, the road itself probably representing its via principalis . The house, farm-buildings and field-fences are mostly built of stones from the Wall and fort. A mediæval pele-tower was the nucleus of the present house.

I took my leave of Rudchester much refreshed, and grateful that my experience had been the exact opposite of old Hutton's, for this is the verse with which he commemorates his visit:

"I saw old Sir at dinner sit,
Who ne'er said, 'Stranger, take a bit,'
Yet might, although a Poet said it,
Have sav'd his beef, and rais'd his credit."

The site of another mile-castle is recognizable by the gate into a field a little farther on; and then comes "The Iron Sign," once an inn, with Roman-inscribed stones built into the front. The old lady who lived here had recently been killed by a passing motor-car, while crossing the road, so I was told.

Harlow Hill then came into sight, and glad I was to see it, for I hoped to spend the night there. It was Hutton's first stage from Newcastle. I had written to the Temperance Hotel there (mentioned by Dr. Bruce), asking if I could have a bed, and enclosing a post-card for reply; and although I had received no answer, at least I had not had an unfavourable one.

The Wall-ditch showed very clearly ahead, running { 57} up to Harlow Hill, on the right of the road; and the Vallum, diverging from the road, could be seen on the left.

Arrived at the village, I inquired at once for the Temperance Hotel, only to be told I was several years too late! It had been closed during the war. A day or two later I received my post-card, which had been pursuing me. It bore no signature, and only this sad legend: "No temperance at Harlow Hill."

The hotel, where Hutton had spent one night, was still there, a substantial stone building, but it was now occupied by a private family. I made inquiries from end to end of the village street, but no one could give me a bed, so I found I must walk on a mile or so farther to the next Inn, the "Robin Hood."

Passing the Whittledene Reservoirs, I noticed the houses of Welton (Wall-town), and turned aside to the south for half a mile, to try my chance there.

The road runs along the very brink of the reservoir. Several anglers were seated on the steep banks, very much preoccupied, and their cars were waiting for them in the road.

Welton Hall is pleasantly situated, overlooking the water. It is built entirely of Wall-stones, and the oldest part is a pele-tower. The initials and date—"W.W.—1614"—over the lintel of the back-door, commemorate the building of the more recent { 58} portion by Will of Welton, a sort of modern Samson. Sitting outside the tower one day, when old and blind, he called a ploughboy to him, and wanted to feel his arm, to test its strength. The boy, afraid of being hurt, held out the iron plough-coulter instead of his arm, and Will promptly snapped it in two, remarking, "Men's banes are naught but girsels (gristles) to what they were in my day."

A servant-girl was sitting sewing outside the back-door as I drew near. In answer to my inquiry, she said there was no village, only a farm, but I might perhaps get a bed there. Outside the farm-gate was a little group of boys, playing quoits with large rusty iron rings. Inside the yard I found a busy scene. Several women were occupied in painting, beating or cleaning furniture of various kinds, which was all spread out in the farm-yard. One of them was painting a kitchen bench and table Indian red. Very tentatively I made my request.

"Don't ye see that we are busy spring-cleaning?" was the reply, but in no unkindly tone.

Indeed, I did see, only too well; and I also saw, with my mind's eye, another mile and a half of road stretching out before me, and the night coming down, so I beat a retreat as quickly as I could. How tiresome I must have seemed to those busy women!

I passed a pleasant-looking house before reaching { 59} the Robin Hood Inn, and, seeing the front door wide open, I walked up the garden, gay with pansies and polyanthus, and knocked. No reply. I went round to the back-door, which was also wide open. Still no reply. So I came away. Then I tried a farm-house. The woman who answered my knock told me she was housekeeper to two old bachelors, one of whom was ill, so she could not help me. Lastly I came to the Robin Hood Inn. An uncompromising notice hung in the front window: "CLOSED;" and a motor-car stood outside the door. However, I knocked, and a girl of about fourteen, very neatly dressed, answered my knock. She told me that their family was so large that they never had a bed to spare; that her sister was ill (it was the doctor's car outside), and they could not possibly take me in. I asked for lemonade or aerated water. No; they had nothing at all. "Well, a glass of plain water?" Yes, I could have that, and welcome. When she returned with it, I inquired how far it was to the next inn. She could only tell me of Matfen, nearly 3 miles away. I had already walked more than 20 miles, not counting the distance covered in my explorations so in desperation I mentioned the house with the open doors, and said: "Do you think the lady of that house would give me a bed?" She brightened up, and answered: "Why, perhaps she would; she's very nice. I'll ask her; she is upstairs helping { 60} with my sister." So she came down, and she was very nice. She was, indeed, a good Samaritan, for I hardly felt I could walk much farther. She gave me the kindest welcome, and her husband did the same when he came home and found me enjoying a good supper with his wife. Never did a guest-chamber seem more attractive than hers to me that night. Remember, I had spent the previous night in the train, travelling from London; I had started on my walk at five o'clock that morning, and the walk for a great part of the day had been on an unsheltered high road, and in a temperature of 81° in the shade.

CHAPTER VII

HUNNUM AND ST. OSWALD'S

Next morning I took leave of my kind hostess, and set out again, prepared to take things easily that day.

The Wall-ditch was very deep and clearly marked on my right, planted with trees (chiefly young larch), and carpeted with flowers—primroses, herb bennet, and the purple giant cranesbill. The Vallum also was conspicuous on the other side of the road.

In the garden of the next house, "Wall Houses," apple-blossom, purple and white lilac, and laburnum were all in full beauty, though they had been quite over in the south before I left. It was a sweet fresh morning, and a gentle breeze was sending down showers of apple-blossom over an old lady walking in the garden.

The next house is called "High Wall Houses," and is all that is left of a village of that name. Everywhere it is Wall—Wall—Wall in the place-names—all along the line.

A road on the left leads down to Corbridge, and then for the first time the road begins to be quite { 62} overarched by trees, very beautiful and shady, and it continues so for some distance. Almost opposite the road to Matfen are traces of a mile-castle. A little way farther on is Matfen Piers, a small farm-house, with a long piece of the Wall-ditch surrounded by a strong stone wall in front of the house, and planted as an orchard with apple-trees and currant-bushes. It looked as if a stream ran along the bottom in wet weather. Now the apples were in blossom, and there were young lambs frisking amongst the currant-bushes. I went round to the back of the house to ask for a drink of water, but the place seemed deserted. Wild rabbits were playing on the back doorstep. And yet the scraper had been used quite recently. I was puzzled at first to think what it was that gave the house a sort of sophisticated air in front; and then I saw. Several of the inverted cups used on telegraph-posts were stuck up in the pear-tree which grows on the house, and it quite gave the impression of telephonic connection! But they were only traps set for unwary earwigs.

The newly discovered causeways across the ditch of the Vallum called for attention next. They are readily discernible in this region.

Soon after this, gorse began to appear on the mounds of the Vallum. The overhanging trees had ceased, and distant hills to the south of the Tyne had come into view, while the Wall-ditch was { 63} again planted with young larch, and this time bright with marsh marigolds. The road runs through the village of Halton Shields, which now consists only of a chapel, a school, a farm-house and two cottages, though in Hutton's time there were twelve houses.

On Carr Hill the mounds and ditch of the Vallum are more striking than ever. A little farther on, a tree-covered mound, known as Down Hill, intervenes between the road and the Vallum, which has evidently made a bend to the south to avoid the hill.

Passing Halton Red House, with its beautiful beds of wallflowers, I began to look out for signs of Halton Chesters, where lies the Roman fort of HUNNUM. A white gate on the left of the road opens on to a lane through a field; the lane is bordered by gnarled and twisted trees, and leads to Halton Tower and the village. This is our indication of the site of the fort, through the midst of which Wade's Road runs, cutting it clean in halves. Having this clue, it is easy to recognize in the pasture to the south of the road the buried gateways and ramparts. The ground to the north was under grass for hay when I was there. When it was being dug up many years ago, the foundations of elaborate buildings were found, and the hypocausts for heating them.

The picturesque Halton Tower, which lies immediately { 64} to the south of the fort, is the one remaining tower of the thirteenth-century castle, built of Roman stones from the Wall and the fort. The present owner is evidently a great lover of flowers. There are beautiful rock gardens (with a Roman altar among the rocks) and masses of rock cistus of every colour, especially a rich rose colour which was new to me.

Regaining the road and continuing westward, I soon crossed a lovely little ravine, with a stream flowing along the bottom, and beech-trees arching overhead. Its steep sides were decked with primroses and other flowers of spring.

A little farther on there is an interesting landmark; it is the site of the Portgate, the gateway through the Wall at the point where the famous Roman road running north crossed the line of the defensive barrier. This road used to be called "Watling Street," a name which was arbitrarily and mistakenly conferred on the entire length of Roman road from London to Scotland by archæologists of the eighteenth century. The mediæval and Saxon name was "Dere Street," and this name is correctly given to it for the first time in the 1921-22 edition of the Ordnance Survey.

William of Malmesbury, writing about 1140 A.D., refers to the Portgate, "where there stood a gate in the Wall, as may appeare by the word, that in both languages importeth as much."

A small Inn, the Errington Arms, stands on Dere Street, close to the site of the Portgate. I called here to ask for a glass of milk. There was no one to be seen inside but a postman, who had evidently completed his delivery of letters for the day, and was reclining on the long low window-seat, in a Panama hat and carpet slippers, reading a newspaper, with a glass by his side. I knocked on the table, and a barmaid appeared, who brought my milk, but I found I had no change left, so I was diving into my haversack for a note to change. Meantime the postman had settled his account, and the barmaid had disappeared.

While I drank my milk, the postman talked very pleasantly about the state of the roads, and the weather, and the coal-strike; but when I knocked on the table to summon the barmaid again, he said quietly: "You needn't do that; I told her to take it out of mine, as you hadn't any change." This was my first experience of being "treated" in a public-house! But the way in which it was done only made me feel that it was another proof of the comradeship of the road. So I thanked him, and went on my way rejoicing.

Soon after this I heard and saw my first curlew, a sure sign that I was nearing the moorland; and these beautiful birds, with their sweet whistling note, were my constant companions from this point for many miles onward.

And now I came to a point where both Wallditch and Vallum surpassed themselves in grandeur. Hutton writes with enthusiasm of the Vallum, and is quite poetic in his fervour:

"I climbed over a stone wall to examine the wonder; measured the whole in every direction; surveyed them with surprise, with delight, was fascinated, and unable to proceed; forgot I was upon a wild common, a stranger, and the evening approaching. I had the grandest works under my eye, of the greatest men of the age in which they lived, and of the most eminent nation then existing; all which had suffered but little during the long course of sixteen hundred years. Even hunger and fatigue were lost in the grandeur before me. If a man writes a book upon a turnpike road, he cannot be expected to move quick; but, lost in astonishment, I was not able to move at all."

The effect when I saw it was heightened (if such a thing were possible) by the marvellous clothing of gorse, glorious clusters of gold, as if Nature herself desired to do honour to this great achievement.

From the top of the next hill the Vallum can be seen to perfection, running up the slope of the hill facing us; nowhere is it better. Soon after this, the distant hills come into view, over the tops of which we are to follow the Wall.

Just before reaching the eighteenth milestone, another mile-castle can be very distinctly traced.

Here again the sight of the gorse was something too much for words. The north bank of the Wallditch, which is very high just here, was one blazing mass of gold, facing south, and with the sun full upon it, while primroses and celandine starred the turf at the bottom. I got over the fence and walked along the glacis. The facing-stones were to be seen then on the northern face, several feet high. It may be the dry weather was specially good for the gorse. Certainly the hot sun brought out to perfection the sweet almond scent, and the bees appreciated it as much as I did, droning in and out of the blossoms in their hundreds.

It was simply baking on the road; the time was midday, and there were hardly any trees at all; only the long white road stretched out before me, going up and down, up and down, in straight, relentless lines.

Crossing the road to examine the Vallum near a small plantation of fir-trees, I caught sight of a column of smoke curling up from behind a low gorse bush. Yes, there was no doubt about it; the bush was on fire! It could not have been burning long, but the fire seemed to be spreading rapidly, running along the dry grass, which burned like tinder. I broke off some green elder-boughs from a bush in the ditch, and began to beat the fire, continuing till I had got it under enough to be able to stamp upon it; but it was half an hour { 68} before I was satisfied that it was dead. It was by bringing water in my hands from a tiny stream that I finally finished it off.

Nearly at the nineteenth milestone there is another mile-castle. It is just where the hawthorn hedge on the left stops, and a fine row of beeches begins to shadow the road. How welcome their shade was! The view to the south from this spot was glorious. And gorse again! The Vallum was a "Field of the Cloth of Gold," seen against the blue background of the hills to the south of the Tyne.

A little farther on, at St. Oswald's Hill Head, a centurial stone is to be seen, built into the farm-house, on the extreme right, high up near the eaves. It is blacker than the other stones, and not easy to find without directions. The patient daughter of the house saw me, from the window, looking for it, and came out to point to the right one, a kind office she must often have to perform during the summer months.

On a little hill to the north of the road is St. Oswald's Church, supposed to be built on the very spot where Oswald, the Christian king of Bernicia, set up a wooden cross before meeting in battle the Welsh king, Caedwallon, in 635. Bede tells us the story. Holding the cross with both his hands while the earth was thrown in to set it fast, the King cried to his army: "Let us all kneel and { 69} jointly beseech the true and living God Almighty, in His mercy to defend us from the haughty and fierce enemy, for He knows we have undertaken a just war for the safety of our nation."

This speech might be taken word for word from a modern newspaper's report of an appeal from the pulpit during the recent war.

Though Oswald had but a small army compared with that of his enemy, yet he won a complete victory.

"The place in the English tongue is called Heavenfield, or the Heavenly Field, which name it formerly received as a presage of what was afterwards to happen, denoting that there the heavenly trophy would be erected, the heavenly victory begun, and heavenly miracles wrought to this day.

"The same place is near the Wall with which the Romans formerly enclosed the islands from sea to sea, to restrain the fury of the barbarous nations, as has been said before."

The little church presents a very modern appearance now, and there is no necessity to ask for the key, for the whole interior is revealed at a glance—through one window.

As I climbed the hilly field in which it stands, a mother and three children were toiling on ahead of me, three chubby children, with bunches of bluebells, and campions, and buttercups flagging { 70} in their hot little hands. They had walked some miles, I found, to lay these wild flowers on a grave behind the church—one of the many customs which we are apt to forget we derive from ancient Rome.

On the south side of the road, opposite St. Oswald's, is a field called Mould's Close, where tradition says that the hottest part of the battle was fought, and where, in witness, the plough has turned up skulls and sword-hilts.

Still farther south is Fallowfield Fell, where there is a series of Roman quarries, and a "written rock." Flavius Carantinus, a quarryman, left his mark there: "PETRA FLAVI CARANTINI." An old woman outside a cottage directed me where to find the rock, telling me it was near some "old wawkins." The Northumbrian country people so often elide the letter "r" and the final "g." One man puzzled me very much by talking about the "'Omans;" not till I had been listening to him for five minutes did I realize that he meant the Romans!

I found the old coal shaft, but I had some difficulty in finding the stone, and when found it was hardly decipherable. So many other people had wanted to claim the stone of Flavius, for no other reason than because he had claimed it, and had written their names beside his, when there were any number of unclaimed stones to be had! Well, that's the way { 71} of the world, I suppose; the way of the spoilt child, who only waits to see his brother pick up a pebble, and then wails: " I wanted that."

However, it was worth anything to have come; the outlook is so beautiful from Fallowfield Fell; and the beautiful name suits it. It is a wide heathery expanse, flecked by cloud-shadows, as I saw it, and sloping steeply down towards Hexham and the Abbey, which lie, tree-surrounded, at the foot of the Fell. And beyond the Tyne, hill upon hill recede into the distance as far as the eye can follow.

CHAPTER VIII

BRUNTON AND THE ROMAN BRIDGE

Returning to the road, the next landmark I saw was a mile-castle, just visible by a field-gate on the right. Black Pasture Quarry is also on the right. Here the Romans obtained much of their sandstone for the Wall, and for the Roman bridge at Chesters. Now there are mountains of broken fragments, covered more or less with a grassy growth, and shadowed by large trees, with paths winding in and out. It is a queer-looking place altogether, and worth a visit.

Just about here the Wall crosses the road from right to left; and before we reach the twentieth milestone, a good strip of it is seen in a field on the left belonging to Plane-trees Farm. Some of the facing-stones are still in place, but it does not look as if they could long remain so, for thorn-trees, with gnarled and twisted stems, are growing along the top, thrusting their great sinewy roots between the stones, and pulling the Wall to pieces. This is the piece of Wall which, in 1801, just before Hutton passed, was 224 yards long and 7½ feet high. { 73} He saw it being taken down to build a farm-house. His tears and entreaties prevailed to save the next piece on our road—so says local tradition. This is in the grounds of Brunton House, hidden in trees and shrubberies on the left. I applied at the house for permission to see the Wall, and the little maid who came to the door said pleasantly, "Oh yes, you can see it; but there's really nothing to see!" Her conception of "nothing" was evidently quite different from mine, for I found a great deal to see. First, there was the Wall-ditch, which is very bold in its proportions. It was full of rhododendrons, azaleas, and forget-me-nots. The path leads through a wicket-gate right into and along the ditch, and brings us to the Wall. It is a magnificent piece of Wall! It is 7 feet high, with nine courses of facing-stones in place on both sides, and it must be 60 feet long at least. Yew-trees, hawthorns, oaks and nut-stubs are growing on the top. Two altars lean against the north face. I climbed the Wall, with religious care not to disturb a stone, and found myself standing above the first turret we have come to, and perhaps the finest there is to see. It is 12½ feet by 11½ feet in plan. Its north wall is eleven courses high, rising to a height of 8½ feet. It was so smothered in nettles that I could not examine it at all closely, but I could see in what excellent preservation the stone-work still is. Jumping down into the adjoining meadow, I followed the { 74} Wall, till it ended abruptly at the angle of the grounds; but I could see that it was making straight for the Roman bridge at Chesters, striking boldly away from the high road for the first time since Newcastle. I followed its course to the bottom of the meadow, then through the field gate, and across the road leading to Hexham, into the meadows opposite, and so to the railway line. A short distance beyond the railway the Wall joins the Roman bridge, which passed over the North Tyne, and led straight to the fort of Cilurnum. The remains of the Roman bridge are fenced in, to protect them from rough usage, but the defences are not impregnable; there are many gaps in the hawthorn hedge. Just inside the hedge the Wall is seen joining the stone abutment of the bridge, having here a width of over 6 feet. It ends in a square tower on the abutment, a tower rather larger than an ordinary wall turret.

Dr. Bruce calls this bridge "the most remarkable feature on the whole line of the Wall," and it is wonderful, though I confess I was disappointed with it at first for not presenting greater possibilities for a picture. Trees and plants had so grown up round it that when I first saw it it looked smothered, but in preparation for the Pilgrimage of the Archæological Societies, the scythe was very busy in September 1920, and it has since been more visible.

Fig. 6.—Plan of Roman Bridge over the North Tyne, near Chesters,
showing how the Great Wall joined it. (After Clayton.)
A pier of the earlier bridge is seen embedded in the masonry of the later one.

Stukeley, who travelled along the Wall in 1725, speaks of "a wonderful bridge of great art, made with very large stones, linked together with iron cramps fastened with molten lead." Hutton does not appear to have taken the trouble to turn aside to look for it, but kept straight on across the bridge at Chollerford. Until 1860 the remains were completely buried in silt from the river, but were then excavated by Mr. John Clayton, "of happy memory."

There are remains of two bridges. The first was much narrower than the later one, only about half as wide. The later one was wide enough to take the Military Way (normally 18 to 20 feet). Both bridges rested on stone piers in the bed of the stream, and it is from the remains of these piers that the width of each bridge can be ascertained. They have pointed ends, technically known as "starlings." The earlier piers were pointed at both ends; the later ones only at the up-stream end. There were three piers to the later bridge, thus leaving four water-openings. One theory is that the course of the river changed between the building of these two bridges, and so necessitated a reconstruction, the earlier bridge being possibly Hadrian's, and the later one constructed by Severus when he repaired the Wall. This would assume that the river had altered its course a great deal in the ninety years between Hadrian and Severus.

Another theory ascribes the original bridge to Agricola, on the supposition that he built the first fort at Chesters, where some pottery, which appears to be of earlier date than Hadrian, has been found. In any case this earlier bridge was built before the Wall was thought of.

Mr. F. G. Simpson's suggestion is that it may have been part of Hadrian's original scheme of Forts and Vallum (or "Boundary"). With the building of the Wall the bridge would have to become "defensive," and it would be necessary to make the water-passage as short as possible. It would no longer be a matter of indifference, as when it merely served as a passage-way and a boundary-line. Hence the very massive later abutments, to narrow the width of the river-passage; and this would sufficiently account for the fact that one of the water-piers of the older bridge is embedded in the masonry of the east land abutment of the later one.

The course of the river has changed since Roman times; it has swerved to the west, so that the western abutment is quite under water, and the eastern one is high and dry, and separated from the river by quite a mountain of silt, overgrown with grass and trees.

The stones of which the abutments are built are very massive, one of them measuring nearly 5 feet in length. They must have been brought from the Black Pasture Quarry. Many of them have { 78} lewis-holes in them, for lifting; some of the holes have been filled up with cement. The earlier parts have no lewis-holes in the stones, which were evidently put in position by hand.

A continuous iron cramp follows the outline of the abutment where it faces the river, being anchored inward by iron bars.

That Severus did repair the bridge there is little doubt, for the feather-broaching which is characteristic of his period is to be seen on some of the stones.

One of Trajan's coins shows a bridge with wooden arches. The later bridge may have been like this, or they may both have been flat wooden platform bridges. It is clear that some means of closing each of the four water-openings by a kind of portcullis would be necessary to prevent the passage of an enemy when the stream was low. In times of "spate," these portcullises would have to be raised. A peculiar barrel-shaped stone, 4 feet long, lying amongst the ruins, with holes all round for the insertion of spokes, may have served as a counterpoise in the process of raising; and two round stone pillars, the remains of which also lie there, might have taken a part in the same scheme. In Cumberland such a water-gate is called a "heck."

Fig. 7.—Section of a stone (S) with a lewis-hole, showing the method of lifting by means of a lewis.
The two wedge-shaped pieces of iron, A, A, are first inserted in the hole, and the third piece, B,
is then placed between them. The pin of the lifting-tackle, C, is then passed through all three pieces.

Remains of piers similar to these at Chesters have been found at Corbridge, where the Roman bridge over the Tyne was about 462 feet long, with eleven waterways, as compared with the four { 80} waterways and 184 feet of length between the abutments here on the North Tyne.

The waters of the North Tyne were very "low and placid" that day, as Dr. Bruce says they must be if the piers in the middle of the stream are to be seen. They also looked very cool and inviting; and so I soon found myself in the middle of the stream searching for the piers.

There they were, both of them, just where they were sunk eighteen hundred years ago, with their pointed ends facing up-stream, to cleave a parting through the swirling waters when the river "came down."

Then I searched for the western abutment, and finally landed on the Chesters side of the river, intending to link up the bridge with the fortifications there. But here I was on Chesters ground, and I had not paid my sixpence! Visions of tea at the George also began to rise before me, so conscience and inclination for once pulling in the same direction, I put on my shoes and stockings and made tracks for the George . I went along the west bank of the river, and so passed the old mill-house, partly built of Roman stones, with a Roman altar built into a wall in the mill-yard, and a large Roman mortar standing by its back-door.

Soon the familiar George came into sight, but the familiar face of the landlord was not to be seen { 81} outside. This was very unusual on a fine day, so I entered, and turned towards the office, expecting to find him there. Two men were seated there, half buried in papers, and they came forward to ask my business. I said I wanted a bed for the night, and would like to see Mrs. Simmonds. They sent for her, and she soon appeared, gave me a. kindly welcome, said they could quite well take me in for the night, and surely I must be wanting some tea? But the house seemed strangely quiet. I had my tea alone in the coffee-room, and then I wrote letters till dinner-time. One of the maids came to ask: "Will you be taking dinner?" "Certainly," I said, with some surprise.

But when I found myself quite alone at dinner, I knew something was wrong, and I made inquiries of the waitress. "Why, yes," she said; "didn't you know? Haven't you seen the papers? Mr. Simmonds was buried yesterday." No, I had not heard; I had seen no papers since I left London, for I had been on the road all the time. After dinner, I hastened to see Mrs. Simmonds, to express my sympathy, and to explain what must have seemed my strange behaviour.

And so the George has lost its landlord; and many people have lost a kind friend and neighbour. From morning to night in fine weather his tall figure and cheery face, crowned with white hair, were to be seen outside the George , where he held himself { 82} ready to extend a welcome to all who came. He will indeed be missed.

Next morning I started westward again, first to visit Chesters, within half a mile of Chollerford, where are the famous remains of tie Roman fort of CILURNUM. My plan was to walk every step of the line of the Wall, as far as possible consecutively, so now I had to pick it up again on the west bank of the North Tyne where the Roman bridge had crossed.

It was a perfect morning, with a sweet fresh air, and great clouds rolling up, from behind which the sun shone coquettishly at frequent intervals. The beeches which here overhang the road were at their freshest stage of green, having just scattered their bright russet leaf-caps all over the road, as a carpet for the wayfarer to tread upon. The pink and white leaf-caps of the sycamores made less show, in colour as in quantity; there is no tree so lavishly clothed with leaves as is the beech.

I once had a little conversation with the genial landlord of the George about these very beeches, one evening when he was showing me his garden.

He was telling me of the famous people who had visited the George and signed its visitors' book, amongst them Bernard Shaw and Rudyard Kipling; and then he added: "It's a funny thing, but do you know, Mr. Rudyard Kipling didn't know the difference between a beech and an oak—clever { 83} gentleman as he is. Would you have believed it?"

"Well, he came up to me, and he said: 'Mr. Simmonds, you have some very fine oaks in this part of the country.' I said: 'They're not oaks, sir, they're beeches.' And he said: 'Oh, are they?' So you see he didn't know."

"But how can you be sure he was not referring to the oaks, for there are oaks about here too?"

CHAPTER IX

CILURNUM

It was the late Mr. John Clayton of Chesters who laid the foundation of the new knowledge of the Wall which excavation has brought to light. As other people collect antiquities to put in a glass case, so he collected the Roman Wall. Whenever a piece of ground along its line was in the market, he was first in the field to buy it; and to his zeal and knowledge it is due that so much has been preserved and excavated. It was his life-work. Therefore it is no mere figure of speech to say that a visit to the Roman Wall is a visit to his shrine; and since Chesters was his home for so many years, the Museum there, and the very fort of Cilurnum itself are especially commemorative of him and his work.

All the forts along the line follow a general plan, though each has its distinctive features. In plan they are parallelograms, with rounded corners, enclosed by a stone wall at least 5 feet thick, with a circumscribing ditch, and with gateways north, south, east and west.

Fig. 8.--Plan of the Fort of Cilurnum at Chesters. (From <i>Archæologia Æliana</i>.)

Fig. 8.—Plan of the Fort of Cilurnum at Chesters. (From Archæologia Æliana .)

These gateways have double portals, which were arched over, and were closed by two-leaved wooden doors, swinging on pivots shod with iron. The doors shut against a stone set up in the centre, or else against a stone threshold. The pivot-holes can very { 86} often be seen, and sometimes the iron sheath is still in the pivot-hole, although the wooden door has perished.

In the case of this fort of Cilurnum, as also at Amboglanna, there were six gateways altogether, two smaller ones to the south of the main eastern and western gateways; these had only one portal instead of two.

A guard-chamber was always set on either side of each main gateway; there was a turret just within each rounded corner of the fort, and intermediate turrets were set along the walls.

The appearance of these turrets may be surmised from the fortification-turrets shown on Trajan's column.

Chambers above gateways are also shown on Trajan's column, which suggest to the mind's eye a possible reconstruction of the single gateways of the Wall-forts.

It is generally accepted that the twin flanking-towers of the double fort-gateways, and also the Wall turrets, were carried up from one and a half times to twice the height of the wall (whether fort-wall or Great Wall). The rampart-walk is reckoned to have run at a height of from 13 to 15 feet from the ground, so that it would pass over a gate quite horizontally, and without steps. It would be continued right through the towers and turrets, passing through doorways in their side walls, and across the floor of their upper storey.

Mr. John Ward (in Romano-British Buildings and Earthworks , p. 70) calls attention also to a gate { 88} figured on a mosaic in the Avignon Museum, as suggesting the possible character of the double gates on the Wall-line.

Frequently the great Wall aligns itself with the northern wall of the forts, as at Borcovicium, Æsica and Amboglanna; but sometimes, as here at Cilurnum, it strikes the fort about one-third way along the eastern and western walls, leaving one-third, including a gateway, to project northwards into the enemy's country. This looks as if the garrison could not have lived in a constant state of warfare.

Fig. 11.--Gate of a Fort on a mosaic in the Avignon Museum. From <i>Collectanea Antiqua</i>. (After John Ward.)

Fig. 11.—Gate of a Fort on a mosaic in the Avignon Museum.
From Collectanea Antiqua . (After John Ward.)

Streets run between the north and south gateways and the east and west, in every case. Where they cross are the central buildings, which were called the "Forum" by Mr. Clayton. But that is a civil term. Probably the more correct term is "Principia," to indicate the H.Q. building of a military unit.

This always includes an open courtyard, surrounded by a covered colonnade, the bases of whose piers are still to be seen here at Chesters, as also the gutter-stones to carry off the drippings from the roof.

Roofing-tiles are found, made of a grey shaly sandstone, which would readily cut into thin slabs. They are almost square, and were hung angularly, from one corner, on nails driven into wooden beams, as the rust in the holes still shows. This kind of roofing slab is used up to the present day, but it is hung on a wooden peg. At one period they used to be hung on sheep-bones thrust in under the beams.

The entrance to the Principia always faced the main gate of the fort (the north gate at Cilurnum, the east gate at Borcovicium). At the far end was a series of five small office-rooms, of which the middle one was the most important. It was the sacellum or Chapel of the Standards, the centre of the religious life and of the esprit de corps of the cohort or ala which occupied the fort. It was a constant feature of all Roman forts. The standards themselves, which were deposited there, were objects of worship. They bore a medallion or effigy of the reigning Emperor, and thus these Chapels were the official centres of { 90} "Emperor-worship," a cult actively propagated by the government for political motives. The fact that Christians refused to join in this cult, and thereby committed a political offence, was the initial cause of their persecution.

Here, in the sacellum , the deferred pay of the soldiers was deposited until it became due to them on their discharge. Here also were kept the army pay-sheets, an actual example of which has been found in the sands of Egypt.

At Cilurnum a strong room has been constructed, evidently in a later and more disturbed period. It is entered by steps leading down from the sacellum , and lies under the office-room next to the sacellum on the east, blocking that room in such a way as to prove it could be no part of the original plan. Early in the nineteenth century the heavy oak door of the strong room, studded with nails, was still in place, but it perished when exposed to the air. A slab of stone has been thrown (probably by invaders) across the flight of steps, so that in descending them one has to stoop very low.

The arched roof of the strong room is formed by a series of large stones "stepping over" each other; and its back wall is also "stepped over," so as to make it incline towards the roof.

On my last visit I saw a blackbird's nest neatly tucked in between the stones of this roof. It contained three young ones, with their mouths { 91} perpetually open—creatures of one idea, for the time. There had been five eggs, but tourists had taken two away, as mementoes of Cilurnum.

The colonnade of the Principia at Cilurnum consisted of neat piers made of specially small stones, instead of the circular columns that are found elsewhere. The paving is beautiful; but there are indications that it covers an earlier floor. The chamfered bases of the piers go below the level of the present paving-stones, which may some day be removed, and the original floor-level reached and dated. It would be interesting to see in what state of preservation that floor would be found.

In this outer court there is a round well, still half full of water; the stones are all the original Roman work except the top row. There are "set-backs" at intervals down the sides of the well, to form footholds when it was necessary to descend it. Its workmanship is beautiful.

Another necessary and constant feature in the inner arrangement of a Roman fort was the pair of granaries, often set close together, side by side. These granaries were the strongest of the inner buildings. Their walls were thick and heavily buttressed, and their floors supported either on dwarf walls, or on pillars, to provide for the circulation of air underneath them and so prevent damp.

The remains of the granaries at Cilurnum have { 92} unfortunately been removed; they stood to the south-west of the Principia.

A very important find in a guard-chamber at Cilurnum was what is known as the "Chesters Diploma," a bronze tablet, conferring the privileges of Roman citizenship on certain soldiers who had earned it by faithful service. It is now in the British Museum. Dr. Bruce gives a full description of it in his Handbook to the Roman Wall .

At Cilurnum these were situated to the north of the Principia, and important remains are to be seen in the north-eastern section of the fort area.

There was probably accommodation for six companies of one hundred men, ten men in a room. The Asturians who formed the garrison came from a mountainous district in the north of Spain, where it is quite as cold as the valley of the North Tyne. The hardy mountain ponies they brought with them were known as Asturco by the Romans. The stables have not been identified. The barrack-rooms had a covered way or verandah running in front, with a series of columns, some of whose bases remain. A massive stone gutter runs down the middle of the street between the barracks. They probably had little pent-house roofs. When the rooms were excavated they were full of pottery, bones, oyster-shells, and rubbish of all kinds, giving { 93} a very bad impression of the standard of refinement and comfort of the last occupiers.

To the east of the Principia is what is most probably the residence of the commandant, with private baths, as well as dwelling-rooms, elaborately heated by means of hypocausts. The building was finely designed and finished. A beautiful moulding runs round the base, and also round the buttress.

The site of the furnace is close to a large yew-tree; it is semi-circular, and the fuel for it was wood. The hot gases and smoke were drawn under the floors of the rooms, which were supported on hypocaustal pillars of burnt clay tiles mortared together, or of stones such as are used in the walls. Brick tiles were used nearest the furnace, because the heat would have cracked the stone. Fragments of circular columns are also used, but these are diverted from their original purpose. The floors of the rooms were of double slabs of stones, cemented together, so as to prevent the smoke from coming up through the floors.

The tiles were roughened with a tool usually, to give a grip to the mortar. Accidental marks, made on them when wet, are often seen: the footprints of dogs, dents from the nails of a sandal, thumb-marks, showing the lines of the skin, and the mark of a man's bare foot, showing the great toe.

The baths had been cemented all over with pink cement, probably made with brick-dust. The rooms { 94} were plastered inside, and the plaster decorated with deep red, terre-verte and yellow ochre. Evidently they had been replastered sometimes over the paint, and coloured again on the top, just as we put on successive wall-papers.

The level of the floors had been raised nearly 3 feet since the building was first made.

Over its ruined walls there grows the pretty little purple "Erinus Alpinus," which is said by some to have made a mysterious appearance only since the excavations were begun. Did it spring from seed which had long lain dormant, having been originally brought from Spain by one of the Asturians who garrisoned this fort?

It is an attractive legend, and I would like to believe it true; but the hard cold fact is that somebody remembers its having been deliberately planted on the ruins after the excavations were made!

A very interesting point which must not be missed is the way in which the stone thresholds of the gateways have been worn by the chariot-wheels passing over them. It must have been a dreadful jolt for the occupants to cross these high thresholds when they were new, but Roman soldiers were of course above minding little things like that! The ruts are just over 4 feet 6½ inches apart, exactly the distance of the wheel-marks we see in the streets of Pompeii.

The Vallum runs into the circumscribing ditch at Cilurnum; that is to say, the two ditches coalesce at the south of the fort.

What has been called the Roman "Villa" at Cilurnum is now definitely recognized as the bath-house provided for the comfort of the troops, or perhaps for the officers only. It is the best-preserved building on the Wall-line, one of its chambers still standing twenty-three courses of stones, or 9½ feet high.

The great storehouse at Corstopitum, which might claim to rival it, is 2½ miles south of the Wall.

There is a great bath-house built for the local garrison at Ravenglass which is even more striking, as its walls are standing almost their whole height. It was excavated in 1881.

The position of the buildings at Cilurnum, outside the fort walls, at the foot of a slope and close to the river, where the soil has been washed down and has covered them up, accounts for their excellent preservation.

The baths are entered now (by a flight of wooden steps) just at the point where the original entrance doorway stood. An outer lobby led into what appears to have been the unrobing and anointing room, a very large flagged chamber, with seven round-arched stone niches on the west wall. There has been much speculation about their use, and { 96} nothing certain is known, but it is suggested that they may have been cupboards for the bathers to hang their clothes in.

From this apartment one passes into a lobby, giving access to the hot rooms, to the right, and to the cold rooms, with a fountain, to the left. Straight forward is the final "rest-and-amusements" room, which has flues in the form of a cross.

Turning out of this is another chamber, also with cross-flues, and with a semi-circular apse, out of which opens a splayed window, 4 feet wide. Roman window-glass, of a bluish-green, was found on the ground outside this window. The glass is not very transparent, having probably been poured out on a flat surface when made. It is very rare to find examples of Roman windows, because buildings are hardly ever preserved up to the window-level. These walls are twenty-three courses of stones high, or about 9½ feet.

There are two hot rooms, one leading out of the other, and both heated by hypocausts. The jambs of the doorway between them are single stones, each 6 feet high. The walls of one chamber stand 7½ feet high.

The furnace lies beyond these two rooms and is immediately behind the wall with the seven niches.

There are remains of the concrete vaultings of the rooms, and in several instances there are double thresholds, where the floor levels have been raised. { 97} We see also drainage arrangements for carrying the water down to the river.

Altogether this is a most interesting building, and it is a pity that no inscriptions have been found here which would fix definitely its date and its purpose.

As seen across the North Tyne it is very inconspicuous, because the grassy river-bank hides it. The soil having in the course of ages washed down and buried the building, now that it has been excavated it stands in a hollow. However, the seven arches of the unrobing-room are very plainly seen. The yew-tree, behind the cows in the picture, marks the situation of the furnace for the heating arrangements of the Commandant's house.

The western abutment of the Roman bridge can sometimes be seen in the water under the trees to the right.

I was sitting painting here one day when the river was very dry; the stones showed me much more of themselves than I wanted to see. I said to myself: "I do wish the river would fill up a little." Almost immediately after, I looked up, and it had filled up a little, just about enough to suit my purpose. I hardly had time to be thankful before it had risen a good deal more than enough, and in a very short time there was not a stone to be seen. This was indeed too much of a good thing! I realized that the river had "come down," as they { 98} call it. It was now rushing madly along, getting very brown and frothy, and boughs of trees were beginning to be borne along on its current. When I went home to lunch, I met a dead sheep being carried along, and at the George they told me that Barrasford Ferry was impassable. Haughton Castle had telephoned to say so, and to ask to have its friends coming by rail stopped at Humshaugh Station.

No wonder ardent fishers are warned to be careful when fishing in these northern streams.

Another day, when I was painting here and the stream was fairly low, I was entertained by the antics of a merry party of girls. They kept crossing and recrossing the river by means of very inadequate stepping-stones, and at last two of them tumbled in. They made no trouble of it, but took off their pink cotton frocks and hung them up in a tree to dry, put on their waterproofs, and went off to view the fort. Meantime the cows came down to the river to drink, and, curious as cows always are, they began licking the dresses until at last they licked them off the tree. I on my side of the stream was powerless to help. Finally they went off, leaving the dresses in a huddled heap of pink, and wetter than ever, I should think. I was only thankful that they had not shared the fate of a blue woollen motor-scarf on the banks of the Dee, which was hung over the back of a car by its owner while { 99} she went fishing. She returned to see the last six inches disappearing down the throat of a cow! She was left frivolously wondering whether, in its new sphere of influence, it would turn the milk blue.

One more word about Cilurnum. In the church at Chollerton, about 1½ miles up the North Tyne from Chollerford, the columns of the south side of the nave bear evidence of Roman origin, and no one who is following the Wall should miss seeing them. They are round columns, each consisting of a single stone, and are of the same diameter and general character as portions of shafts found at Cilurnum. It is more than likely that they were stolen from the ruined fort to occupy their present position, and that to this they owe their perfect preservation.

CHAPTER X

WALWICK TO SEWINGSHIELDS

After striking off from the western gateway of Cilurnum, the Wall appears once again in the grounds of Chesters, several courses high, and is then just traceable through the plantation to the west of the house till we come out on to the road leading to Walwick. Here the Vallum is clearly visible in a field on the left. The foundations of the Wall could long be seen in the road on the rise of the hill towards Walwick, but I doubt if they can often be seen now. "A good surface for cars" is made so that it does not easily wash off, even in thunder-showers!

I did not see them myself; but I have since been told that, though the north face is very seldom seen, the south facing-stones can be made out just at the south edge of the road, unless too much covered by the wayside grass. With this hint, my readers may be more successful than I was in finding them. Hutton says of Walwick: "The village is delightful, and the prospect most charming," and this is as true to-day as it was when he wrote it. From the { 101} top of the hill, Hexham, with its towers, the valleys of the Tyne, and a fine wooded country with hills beyond are spread out before you. Presently the Wall-ditch appears in good condition on the right of the road. Nearly opposite the road on the left leading to Fourstones is a cottage, built entirely of stones from the Wall. It presents a very solid rectangular eastern face, from which four battlements project, and it is known as "Tower Taye." A bit of wall running behind it looked in the distance like the Wall, so I went to examine it. As I drew near the house, which lies in a field a little way back from the road, I noticed that the gate into the yard was merely the head of an old iron bedstead, originally painted green. One castor remained—on the loose leg; the other leg was tied, at top and bottom, to the wooden gate-post, and its foot sunk deep into the soil. It made a decidedly original gate! A huge sow, with a litter of young ones, had flung herself down in front of this gate, as though to act as a watch-dog. A large tin basin, full of dirty soap-suds, stood in the middle of the path to the front door, which was a heavy oaken one, thickly studded with nails. Altogether the place struck me as being a very well-defended Tower!

The wall behind was not the Wall, so I came away. As I emerged on to the road, a young man was passing in a light cart. He pulled up and asked if I was going far. I said I was following the Roman { 102} Wall. "Well, I could have given you a lift. It's not much of a trap; I only bought it yesterday at a fair, and one of the wheels is a bit shaky, but I don't think it will come off." I should not have minded the rickety cart, but "lifts" were not in my line just now; so I thanked him, saying I was pledged to walk, and he drove on. Shortly afterwards two caravan-carts passed. One was covered at the back with red-brown tarpaulin, from under which a fat brown baby could be seen, lying asleep.

As I reached the top of the hill, I saw a boy leaning against the stone fence, so I asked him if he could tell me whether I was near the piece of Wall on Black Carts Farm. He said: "D'ye see that bit dene in the field yonder? That's the Wall." And he pointed on ahead, to a field on the right. The "bit dene" was a hollow, filled with trees and undergrowth, running parallel to the road through a field of young corn. At the very top of the hill on which I stood there is a young plantation, and just beyond it a stile on the right leads by a little path to the site of a mile-castle. From this point I found that, for the first time, I could walk continuously along the line of the Wall as it ran through the grass. The "bit dene" still lay ahead.

It was a perfect "Wall-day," and both Wall and Vallum were traceable to perfection in front of me, one on either side of the road, right up to the top of the steep Limestone Bank. At my feet { 103} were purple orchis growing in the young bracken, and the whole countryside was clothed in what Chaucer calls "the gladde brighte grene" of spring.

Following the line of the Wall, I soon came to the "bit dene" on Black Carts Farm, where there is a very fine piece of Wall standing, and also a considerable portion of a Wall turret. The facing-stones of the Wall are in position on both sides for a considerable distance, and to a height of 7 feet. In the turret were found coins of Constantine the Great, showing that it was not disused, as some of the recently examined turrets were, when the Wall was reconstructed by Severus, about A.D. 207-10.

The wild flowers in the "bit dene" were very lovely and varied: bluebells, cowslips, campion, wild garlic, cranesbill, herb bennet, sweet woodruff, the great stitchwort, and purple orchis were all growing in profusion.

Still following the Wall, I crossed a lane known as "Hen Gap," and began to climb the hill called Limestone Bank, where another fine piece of Wall is standing, overhung with gorse, now in full blossom.

The Vallum-ditch is very remarkable in this region; and hazel, hawthorn and mountain-ash trees grow on its steep sides.

Looking back from Limestone Bank, you can see the Wall and the Vallum very clearly, running { 104} one on either side of Wade's Road. The mile-castle mentioned on page 102 lies close to the road on the left, just where it disappears over the hill.

I was first brought to this spot with my painting-things by friends in their car, and just as we reached it I saw on ahead, walking along the line of the Wall, a hatless, stockingless, shoeless figure, with a haversack on its back.

"Look!" I cried; "there's a real 'Pilgrim of the Wall.' Take me on another half-mile, and I'll walk back and meet her."

They did so, but the Pilgrim disappeared behind a stone fence before we passed her.

When I met her she was not at all the strong-minded female I had expected to see, but a gentle-looking young thing, a school teacher from Newcastle, and it was sheer timidity that had made her hide behind a wall when she saw us coming.

However, she was delighted to have some one to talk to when she saw I was not shocked at her bare feet! She told me she was walking from Hexham to Crosby-on-Eden, and hoped to sleep at Gilsland that night. As for the Wall, she knew very little about it, but she hoped to learn more on the way.

At the top of Limestone Bank I found a pictureesque encampment by the side of the road. Four horses were tethered, cropping the grass, while { 105} two mothers and a swarm of children out of the caravan carts were busily employed in lighting a fire in the shelter of a little copse. Two men were collecting fuel, and in one of them I recognized the young man of the light cart.

The women greeted me cheerily. They were making for Appleby Fair, and reckoned on doing about 20 miles a day.

A mile-castle is easily distinguished on the right of the road, just opposite where the plantation ends. A piece of its wall has been uncovered. The military way is specially worthy of notice here, coming up to the south gateway of the mile-castle, for it is the first time we have come across it, with its curved surface and stone kerbs. We shall very frequently meet with it, where the Wall runs over the heights.

From this summit can be noticed for the first time the curious formation of the hills in these parts, sloping up gradually from the south, and ending precipitously on the north, for all the world like a breaking wave; following each other also just like a succession of waves. The Romans made good use of this formation, planting the Wall and their forts on the very highest ridges, wherever it was possible.

The Wall-ditch and the Vallum-ditch demand all our attention just over the crest of Limestone Bank. They have been cut through the solid basalt rock, { 106} and huge boulders lie about still, just as they lay when the Roman workmen left them.

Peewits and curlews now began to be very plentiful on this open moorland, the former flying round and round me, with their plaintive cry, fearful lest I should track their nests. I noticed how difficult it is to see their crests when they are flying; they lay them back so close to their heads. I suppose they would otherwise retard their flight.

Speaking of crests, reminds me of an old lady who takes in visitors along the line of the Wall, and who has been heard to say that she much prefers to have "crested people" to stay with her!

The west wind was getting stronger and colder as I walked on. Great pillars of cloud stood up against the deep blue sky to the north-west; while on the south-west, over Tindale Fell, it was raining hard.

The next farm-house is Carrawburgh, and near here lay the Roman fort of PROCOLITIA. A mile-castle is seen on the left just before we come to the fort.

There is very little indeed of Procolitia to be seen on the surface. The famous well of the water-goddess, Coventina, is merely a patch of rushes railed round, and too wet even to be examined. It is just possible to make out the walls and gateways of the fort under the grass. The great Wall joined on to the north wall of the fort. The Vallum curves round to the south to avoid it.

The first cohort of the Batavians was stationed at Procolitia; and the Tungrians were stationed at the next fort, Borcovicium. This is significant, because Tacitus mentions that Batavians and Tungrians fought side by side in Agricola's army when he won the battle of Mons Graupius. So it seems that they first came to Britain under Vespasian.

After we have passed the farm-house of Carraw, built by the monks of Hexham for a summer residence, Sewingshields comes into full view, nestling in trees, exactly over the top of the next hill in the road. The land has now become still more bleak and barren; there are no longer fresh green pastures, but brownish sheep-moors, dotted with tufts of rushes and coarse grass. Presently I saw something dark sticking up in the long grass by the side of the road. I was meeting the wind, so I got quite close before it moved. It was the two dark ears of a hare which sped like lightning, when it saw me, under a five-barred gate on the right, and so across the moor, till it vanished, as a speck, over the horizon.

And now at last the Wall leaves Wade's Road, so I climbed over the stone fence which bounds the road to walk on its grassy mound. It diverges more and more from the road, and makes straight for where the crags begin at Sewingshields.

It soon brought me to a very interesting { 108} mile-castle which has been excavated. The northern gateway is the first good specimen of a mile-castle gateway that we have come to. It is fenced round to protect it from animals. I clambered over the stone dyke and down into the Wall-ditch, to gaze up at the massive masonry, which looks much more imposing seen from the north. Nine courses of stones are in place on the western side of this gateway.

There were now two stone dykes between me and Wade's Road. The Wall-ditch continued to be very deep and striking. Flags and water-reeds covered its bottom, and great boulders lay strewn about.

At a fir-plantation the Vallum crosses Wade's Road, and from this point onwards it runs along in the low land while the Wall clings to the heights.

On this May day the brown moorland to the north of the Wall was thickly sprinkled with cotton-grass, its downy white heads giving a silvery sheen to an otherwise dull expanse. "Moss-troopers," the children call them, a white army invading from the north! Or, as a farmer's wife put it to me: "They bits o' flooff would mak' ye think we'd had a shower o' snaw."

And so I came to Sewingshields, where the most fascinating part of the walk begins.

Fig. 12. CONTOUR OF THE WALL RIDGE,
FROM SEWING-SHIELD TO THE NINE NICKS OF THIRLWALL,
AS SEEN FROM THE TOP OF BARCOMBE

Hitherto I had had to keep almost entirely to { 109} Wade's Road. Now, good-bye to the high road, and hurrah for the heights!

Not till we come to Birdoswald, full 13 miles ahead, is it necessary to follow a road again; and even then, after 3 or 4 miles of road, the path lies mainly through fields as far as Burgh-by-sands.

The house at Sewingshields is now used as a shooting-box by Mr. Charles Straker of High Warden, near Hexham. It is built entirely of Roman stones, so it is not surprising that there is very little Wall left in its neighbourhood. The centurial stone, which Dr. Bruce mentions, has been taken out, and is preserved inside the house, where it was shown to me.

The fir-plantation which now shelters the house from the north winds is only of comparatively recent planting. It must have been bleak indeed up there without this protection. The plantation is entered by a stile, just on the site of the Wall, and this is really where the crags begin.

The ditch of the Vallum and its triple mounds are very clearly marked on the right of Wade's Road, and the Wall-ditch is very plainly visible on the left. The low rays of the sun cast shadows which emphasize the form, and all round the eye can follow wave upon wave of undulating ground, right into the dim blue distance.

CHAPTER XI

SEWINGSHIELDS TO HOUSESTEADS

The path from the stile takes us, behind the house of Sewingshields, along the very line of the Wall, until we emerge from the trees by another stile, and find ourselves, as it were, on the very Roof of the World, with steep crags to the right, and long-drawn-out slopes to the left, and magnificent views all round.

To the north lie what are called "The Wastes," with only scattered farms and sheep-moors; a desolate-looking country, I grant you, in dull weather, but a very fairyland as seen from the Wall on an ideal "Wall-day," when its vast expanse is flecked with blue cloud-shadows, reflecting the blue of the sky overhead, and when the little hills seem to "rejoice on every side."

I think I love this view to the north, bare as it is, even more than the one to the south, over the fertile Tyne valley.

An ideal Wall-day is a day of mingled cloud and sunshine, with a bit of a breeze, and yet not enough to make it "windy;" a day when heavy cumulus { 111} clouds marshal themselves along the horizon, and then spread, and scatter, and form again, always threatening to do something great, but always thinking better of it; a day when it is perhaps raining heavily over Barcombe, or over Tindale Fell, and rainbows are chasing each other across the rolling fells to the south; but when "the top of the world," where we follow the Wall, is peaceful and calm in the sunshine, sweet with the smell of the wild thyme as we tread it under our feet, and musical with the notes of the curlews.

I have known many such days. On such a day one is inclined to feel that the lot of a Roman sentry on the Wall was to be envied, until one remembers the other side of the picture—the drenching rain, the bitter wind, the snowdrifts, to say nothing of the constant sense of the need for vigilance, and the actual encounters with an unscrupulous enemy.

Here at Sewingshields we are farther from shops and civilization than at any other point on the Wall. It is 5 miles to Haydon Bridge, the nearest post-office.

The name "Shield" or "Shields" occurs so often along the line of the Wall that it is interesting to see how Camden uses the word in 1599. He says:

"Here every way round about in the Wasts, as they tearme them, as also in Gillesland, you may see as it were the ancient Nomades, a martiall { 112} kind of men, who from the moneth of Aprill into August, lye out scattering and summering (as they tearme it) with their cattell, in little cottages here and there, which they call Sheales and Shealings."

Sewingshields is said to mean "wellings by the seugh (or ditch);" but Camden calls it "Seaven-shale," so it may have merely meant "Seven cottages."

All the 10 miles from Sewingshields to Carvoran the Wall runs along the tops of "basaltic columns," huge pillars of volcanic rock crystallized in hexagonal formation, and making a great natural barrier. The course of the Wall is mainly in a westerly direction, but it also has a general tendency towards the south. Carvoran is just 3 miles farther south than Sewingshields.

THE BASALT CLIFFS ABOVE CRAG LOUGH,
ALONG THE TOP OF WHICH THE WALL RUNS.
HOT BANK CRAGS ARE SEEN IN THE DISTANCE

A steep pass leads down to the plain shortly after we cross the stile from the Sewingshields plantation. This is called Cat Gate. When I was staying in this neighbourhood the farmer told me it was the only point where the Sewingshields Crags could be ascended or descended. I did not dispute it, but I smiled to myself, for during my wanderings I had many times gone up and down the Crags at other points. I used to love to sit half-way down the Crags and watch the rabbits, who got so used to me that I believe they only thought of me as a queer kind of a rock. When I was sketching I used to see hundreds of rabbits sitting about, one on every { 113} projecting rock below me. The Crags swarm with them. One evening an old father rabbit showed his unconcern at my presence by sitting up a few feet off, scratching his front abstractedly with his fore-paws while he looked at me, as much as to say, "I know what you are." Just then I gave an unfortunate sneeze, and it seemed to set all the crags in motion. The thump, thump , of the parental hind-legs, warning their subterranean families of danger, sounded on every side. It is a great proof of family affection that these older rabbits will stop in the danger-zone and thump , as they do, thus losing precious time that might be occupied in flight. The first time I saw this process, I thought my friend the rabbit had been seized with a sudden nervous affection, but I soon found it was only obeying a universal instinct; and even hutched rabbits, after generations of domesticity, and with their families safe by their sides, will carry on the tradition, and thump on the floor of their hutches, to give warning of danger.

Once at the top of Cat Gate I found a pocket-book, almost hidden in the heather. I picked it up, and could see it contained a sheaf of Treasury notes. An hour or so later I saw a young man coming slowly along at the foot of the Crags, looking distractedly from side to side. I stood up, and shouted, "Catch!" and you should have seen the way his expression changed as the pocket-book { 114} went hurtling through the air! In these almost pathless regions it is a serious matter to lose anything of value.

But to return to our rabbits. The rabbits are turned into a source of revenue by the farmers. They increase so rapidly that their numbers have to be kept in check. Sometimes a farmer will sell the "rabbiting" on his farm for the season, for £50 or so, just as the "shooting" is let. Then the rabbit-catcher makes what he can out of it. At other times the farmer will pay the rabbit-catcher so much for every couple caught, and then sell them at a profit. I have known fifty-seven couple to be caught by one man in a day on Sewingshields Crags. You need to look well to your walking when the rabbit-catcher is abroad, for of course he makes his loops of wire as invisible as possible, and you would certainly be brought to the ground if you put your foot in one of them. I was very glad that I never came across a rabbit in a trap, though I used to see hundreds of traps. A shepherd told me that once he saw a pathetic sight: a rabbit in a trap, still feeding her young ones. Missing her, they had crept up out of the burrow, and had traced her to the trap. He set her free at once, for she was not hurt.

This has been a long delay on our walk, but it is so hot that to sit and watch the rabbits will have done us all good.

There used to be a castle, known as Sewingshields Castle, in the fields to the north, built there, it is supposed, to defend this pass of Cat Gate. The field where it stood is still known as "The Castle."

Continuing along the crags, I soon came to the site of another mile-castle. All along here the Wall is in a very ruinous condition, but one can follow closely the mound which once was Wall.

Before leaving the Sewingshields region, we see ahead an important gap called Busy Gap.

Here the Wall bends nearly southward, in order to avoid Broomlee Lough (which laps the feet of Sewingshields Crags) and to make for the next line of crags.

Nothing but the foundations remain of the actual Wall, but stones are piled up roughly on them to make a field-boundary.

It is the interval between the end of Sewingshields Crags and the beginning of the Housesteads series which is known as "Busy Gap," for it was a very weak place on the Wall, and the enemy knew it. Besides digging the usual Wall-ditch across the gap, the Romans made an earthern rampart, triangular in form, as an additional protection. Camden says of this Gap in 1599:

"I could not with safetie take the full Survey of it for the ranke-robbers thereabout."

One evening when I was returning home from { 116} this spot, quite suddenly the mist came down, and blotted everything out. I could not even see the ground at my feet, and anyhow there is no path to follow. So the only thing I could do was to strike upwards until I came to the mound of the Wall on the top of the crags, and then to keep along its south side. After a while the mist lifted as suddenly as it had come down, and I found myself within a stone's-throw of the little plantation at Sewingshields.

It is no joke to be caught by a mist on these fells in the evening; they come down without any warning, and sometimes last for days.

Just beyond the grass-grown site of another mile-castle the platform of the fort of BORCOVICIUM comes into view, with the farm-house of Housesteads. All this time the Vallum can be seen to the left, traversing the low land between us and Wade's Road.

Following the Wall up and down the steep sides of two unchristened gaps, I came to a little wood, which can only be entered and left by climbing the stone wall which surrounds it. A few steps beyond the wood, and there was the "amphitheatre" of Borcovicium lying before me, where Dr. Bruce thought that gladiatorial contests were carried on for the entertainment of the soldiers of the fort. There was also a splendid stretch of Wall, 8 feet wide and 6 feet high, with a flat grass-grown surface, { 117} running along right up to the wall of the fort! This was indeed worth seeing!

I went down into the "amphitheatre," a mere grassy hollow, where Dr. Bruce says nettles are usually growing. I found, not stinging-nettles—not the smallest trace of one—but bright patches of purple "heartsease," surely a far better omen for poor suffering humanity!

It must have been a cynic who first started the idea that stinging-nettles were a sign of human presence. I would like to think that pansies give a truer sign; that good "thoughts," instead of evil ones, are more truly representative of man. In the way in which heartsease has (apparently) displaced stinging-nettles here, on the site of many a bloody contest, let us see a symbol and a prophecy of the displacement of human hatred and rivalry by the spirit of fellowship and love.

But wait! I am forgetting. The "bloody contests" are a myth. Professor Bosanquet trenched the hollow in 1898 and proved it to be an ancient quarry. And so it is marked on the new Ordnance Survey!

Now for the first time it was possible to walk along the top of the Wall, feeling that it was the very structure built by the Romans, and not a mere mound. Soon the course of the Wall was interrupted by a gateway, supposed, by Dr. Bruce, to have been made as an approach to the { 118} "amphitheatre," but the probable explanation of its existence is given on page 122 .

Just here the Wall crosses the Knag Burn, and it is interesting to note how it crosses, because it was no doubt the method employed by the Romans to carry the Wall over every narrow stream. First, the bed of the stream has been paved with stone; then low walls, four or five courses high, have been built along the edges of the stream for a distance of about 10 feet. Lastly, large slabs of stone have been thrown across from wall to wall, to bridge the stream to a width of 10 feet, and on this foundation the Wall has been built. It leaves an opening for the stream about 34 inches high, 30 inches wide, and 10 feet long, not a very pleasant passage for one man to squeeze through, even when the stream was dry, and hopeless for a raiding band!

At this point a notice is posted: "Admission 6d.; parties over 20, 3d. each." It reminded me of the old lady who claimed to be so much over twenty that she ought to be admitted for a penny!

CHAPTER XII

HOUSESTEADS TO PEEL CRAG

The fort of Borcovicium was constructed on the same general plan as that of Cilurnum, but it presents also a very great contrast in situation and in its special features.

Cilurnum lies in the fertile valley of the North Tyne; Borcovicium clings to the bleak heights; but they are alike in the massive nature of their gateways, in which pivot-holes and wheel-ruts can still be seen, and alike in the general arrangement of the Principia and other buildings.

At Borcovicium the Principia faces east, instead of north. A wide arch covered the main entrance, and there were two similar arches inside. There was the usual outer court, surrounded by a colonnade which supported a pent-house roof; the inner court, with a portico; and the series of five small rooms at the back.

In the northernmost room were found over eight hundred iron arrow-heads and some scrap iron, as if { 120} some one had been making arrow-heads here before the fort was finally deserted.

The columns here are round, as contrasted with the square piers of Cilurnum. One very beautiful base is left; it was probably turned on a lathe, as a pattern, and then the building appears to have been interrupted, and the other bases were copied from the first, not very successfully.

The storehouses ( horrea ), for supplies to last all the winter, have had as usual very thick walls and buttresses, in order to support the heavy stone roofs, tiled with stone slabs, to prevent their being set on fire by red-hot sling-bullets. The floors were raised above the ground on squared blocks of stone, to keep the buildings dry, and so preserve the grain. In the Middle Ages a circular kiln was made in the southern granary.

The masonry of the gateways at Borcovicium is particularly massive and beautiful. The north gateway opens on to such a steep slope as to render it practically useless for wheeled traffic. It has been suggested that general instructions were issued, and then carried out au pied de la lettre , even when inappropriate, under special conditions. Such a thing has been known to occur in more recent military works.

Fig. 12. Plan of the Fort of Borcovicium. (After Dickie and Bosanquet.) (Reproduced, by permission, from <i>Romano-British Buildings and Earthworks</i>, by John Ward, F.S.A.)

Fig. 12. Plan of the Fort of Borcovicium. (After Dickie and Bosanquet.)
(Reproduced, by permission, from Romano-British Buildings and Earthworks ,
by John Ward, F.S.A.)

There is a large stone tank by the north gateway, the purpose of which is doubtful. Knives have been sharpened round the edges, giving it a scalloped { 122} appearance, as shown in the picture of this gateway which faces this page.

The so-called "amphitheatre" is seen on the left—a grassy hollow in the angle formed by the Wall and a field-boundary. The gateway in the Wall by the Knag Burn is also seen. In the distance are Sewingshields Crags with the Wall running along the ridge.

It is probable that it was found necessary to make the gateway in the Wall by the Knag Burn because, after the building of the Wall, the only access to the enemy side would otherwise have been by the almost impassable north gate.

The gateways have been all more or less filled up during some period of the Roman occupation, but the filling-up has been entirely removed. This was done in the dark ages of archæology over fifty years ago, and no records were kept at that time of the finds and the different floor-levels, by means of which it is alone possible to learn the period when the gates were blocked. At Rudchester they were filled up in the second century.

The barracks were long narrow huts, about 30 feet in width, built to accommodate a hundred men. They each contained ten or eleven rooms. Here at Borcovicium they run along the length of the fort, instead of crosswise as usual.

NORTH GATE, BORCOVICIUM. THE GREAT WALL IS SEEN RUNNING UP
TOWARDS THE PLANTATION, AND THE SO-CALLED "AMPHITHEATRE"
APPEARS AS A HOLLOW ON ITS LEFT.
SEWINGSHIELDS CRAGS RISE IN THE DISTANCE,
WITH THE WALL FOLLOWING THEIR LINE

The long building by the western gateway was a workshop; part of it was a smithy; there were traces of iron and coal.

The sanitary system was very complete, and is one of the chief evidences of the high level of civilization and comfort which Rome demanded for her soldiers, even at such a remote outpost of the Empire.

The north-east angle tower has been moved when the Wall was built, in order to be in a better position for commanding the line of the Wall, showing that the Wall was not thought of when the fort was built.

The slopes to the south outside the south gateway were covered with buildings so closely that there was no room for a man to pass between the walls of the houses; and to the west there are signs of terraced gardens, such as are common now in Italy.

There are many traces at Borcovicium of the occupation of the enemy, during which time he has destroyed as much as possible of the buildings and walls; and the Romans on re-entering have built again on the ruins, without removing the débris. This accounts for great differences in floor-levels that are found.

I left Borcovicium by the north gate, and followed along the north wall till I came to a little wood, which begins just where the fort ends. The track { 124} of the Wall runs through this little wood, almost hidden in lush and lusty grass, on the extreme edge of the basalt cliffs, which are very steep again here. With slight breaks, the best walking is along the top of the Wall all the way from this little wood to Rapishaw Gap; and then again from Cat Stairs to the west end of Peel Crag. A splendid piece of Wall is this that we are now traversing!

A quarter of a mile from Borcovicium is what is known as the Housesteads mile-castle, the most perfect specimen of a mile-castle that can be seen to-day above ground.

As usual the Wall forms its northern wall, and here it stands fourteen courses, or 9½ feet, high. The thickness of the Wall at the north gateway is not less than 10 feet. The original opening was 10 feet wide, and spanned by an arch, the springers of which are in position still, as also one of the voussoirs; and one of the voussoirs of the arch of the inner gateway is placed on the impost of the outer, as shown in the picture facing this page. Broomlee Lough is seen in the distance.

THE NORTH GATE OF HOUSESTEADS MILE-CASTLE SHOWING HOW
THE GATEWAY WAS NARROWED IN LATTER ROMAN TIMES

The inner gateway has been made, at a later period, by walling up the original one, and so reducing the width from 10 feet to 3¾ feet, and the floor has been raised 3½ feet above the original level. Everything goes to indicate that the gateway has been destroyed several times, and that the Romans have built it up again without removing { 125} the débris. This partial walling-up of the gateways seems to have been done in the case of most of the forts and mile-castles, in the later period of Roman occupation, when Rome could not spare many soldiers for this outlying province.

If we examine the north gateway from the north side it is clear that one of the piers has been partly overthrown when the enemy was in occupation. Something has been inserted in the bar-holes, and the whole Wall has been levered out. This would make the arch collapse. In Severus's reconstruction the pier has been left thus, pushed out of place, and has been built round.

Still walking on the Wall, I came to Cuddy's Crag (Cuddy is a pet name for St. Cuthbert), the Wall maintaining its full breadth of 8 feet and a height of 5 or 6 feet for a long distance. The picture which faces page 28 shows the Wall as seen from Cuddy's Crag, looking eastwards, along the way we have come. Wade's Road is seen like a white ribbon to the left of the trees. Just below it is the gateway through the Wall referred to on page 122 . The hollowed line on the extreme left of the picture, near the horizon, where the Wall makes a great dip down, is Busy Gap.

Over Cuddy's Crag we come to Rapishaw Gap, where the Wall becomes too steep and rough for { 126} walking on. Apparently the mat of turf which covers it elsewhere could not grow on this steep slope.

Just here I came across a sad sight—a new-born lamb with its eyes pierced, evidently by a kite or some such bird of prey.

Next come Hotbank Crags, from the top of which Crag Lough comes grandly into view. To the south of Wade's Road, Barcombe is now prominent, covered with heather, still in its sombre stage, and with the Long Stone standing out sharply against the sky. Beyond Barcombe the green platform of the fort of Vindolanda, at Chesterholm, can be distinguished.

Crag Lough is one of the most beautiful natural features along the line of the Wall. Lying for its whole length immediately under the steep basalt crags, it has the advantage of Broomlee and Greenlee, which spread themselves out in the plain.

Crag Lough is reached through Milking Gap, which lies between the Lake and the farm-house of Hotbank. I tried to get rooms at Hotbank when I was painting along the Wall, but the family was too large to allow of their taking visitors.

There is a mile-castle in Milking Gap; and thence the Wall climbs the slope to the summit of Highshield Crag, where the columns of basalt are particularly striking.

CRAG LOUGH FROM MILKING GAP, WITH WINSHIELDS IN THE DISTANCE.
THE WALL IS VISIBLE ON THE HEIGHTS ABOVE THE LOUGH,
AND ALSO RUNNING OVER WINSHIELDS.

In the picture facing this page, the Wall is seen { 127} running along the top of Highshield Crag above the Lough, having passed through the little wood.

In the distance it is seen taking its farther course over Winshields, the highest hill that it traverses.

The basaltic columns overhanging the Lough, and Hotbank farm-house in the distance, are seen in the picture which faces page 112 .

It is a beautiful walk through the little wood above the Lough, with its waters seen through the branches of the trees. Hosts of jackdaws dwell in these crags, and keep up a perpetual conversation with each other.

The wind had now dropped, and it was warm walking on the unsheltered crags. I had met no one since leaving Sewingshields, so I took off my shoes and stockings and walked barefoot on the grass. But I kept wanting to cross and recross the Wall, and to climb stone hedges, and this was not pleasant with bare feet, so at last I took my bedroom-slippers out of my haversack, and walked in them for several miles, till I suddenly found that I had worn them into holes on the rocks, so they were no longer any protection!

At Steel Rigg Gap the ground falls very steeply, and the Wall-stones are laid horizontally. Here in the gap is a small walled enclosure, with a sycamore growing in it. No! it is not a Wall turret, only a sheep-fold.

Now comes Castle Nick, containing a mile-castle { 128} in very good condition. It is 50 feet by 62 feet. Probably the narrowness of the gap explains why its greatest size is north and south, instead of east and west, as usual.

The south gateway is smaller than the north. Under the foundations of the south gateway have been found the pivot-holes of a wider gate.

Foundations of buildings are to be seen within the walls; no doubt they were similar to the barracks in the stations, and had pent-house roofs.

The next gap is called Cat Stairs, where a very rough and rocky path descends to the plain.

I was coming this way once with my sketching-things at six o'clock in the morning, and I though I would go down the Stairs, and get a view of the Wall from the plains. My things were heavy, so I left them at the top, just where a stone boundary wall crosses the Wall. Having seen enough, I was returning, when I heard a noise. Surely some very large Cat was coming down the stairs! Stones were bounding from rock to rock and falling on the plain. I waited, and there swung into view a tall young shepherd with my sketching-things hung round his neck! It was amusing to see his astonishment and confusion. But I knew at once what had happened without his needing to explain. He thought my things had been forgotten the day before by some member of a party who had visited the Wall, for he said he had never before seen any one { 129} about there so early. I thanked him for his kind intentions, and asked him to add to his kindness by taking the things "upstairs" again. Which he did, and I went on my way.

And here I must interrupt the Walk for a little while to speak of life at the lonely farms, where they so kindly took me in. Nearly always they said, "No," at first. If they gave no reason, or an incontrovertible one, I went away. If they said, "We can't get meat for oorsel's, and we're fair stoured wi' rabbits," I saw my chance, and protested that I wanted no meat at all, only eggs and bread and butter and milk. Then they usually yielded at once, with a "Well, ye sanna go hungert!"

The middle of May is the annual moving-time for the farms, I found; so it is a bad time to try to get taken in.

Once they had hardly got straight after a move when I called, and the good-wife said doubtfully, "Would ye mind a fixt bed?"

"Oh dear, no," I said gaily, not having the faintest idea what it was! But I thought it must be better than a peripatetic one! When the time came, my bed looked very ordinary indeed, and I was quite disappointed. I made inquiries, and the housewife smiled, and said her extra bed had come by the carrier unexpectedly soon. "But ye can see the fixt bed if ye like." I found it was a two-legged wooden bedstead forming part of the structure of a { 130} small attic, with the back built against the wall, and the two legs at the foot immovably glued to the floor. Rather nice, when one moves in to a new house, to find one bed already there!

At these "out-by" farms they keep very early hours; they often have dinner at 10.30, tea at 2.30, supper at 5.30, and go to bed at 7.30.

Sometimes I would spend a day out with the children on the moors, or mosses, as they are usually called, where in places the draining-ditches are so close together that progress is a perpetual jump. Or if there are no ditches, it means jumping from one clump of rushes to the next. But "nae rash-bush e'er deceived true Scot," as the proverb says, and the rush-bushes never let us down, Scots though we were not.

There I saw cranberry-blossom for the first time; and any amount of milk-wort, all colours, and butter-wort, and the sticky round-leaved sundew.

Once they made me cut a peat, my first peat, standing by and laughing while I tried my prentice-hand at it.

The crust of the ground is hard, and one is apt not to exert enough force to start with. Then perhaps one overdoes it, and goes through the crust all of a sudden, and so slithering down through the soft damp peat far more quickly than one intended. { 131} But they were kind to me, though they laughed. They said: "She didn't break her first peat; that was champion!"

We would roam on the moors and hear the badgers barking, and sometimes we would see one; and we'd go and watch the sheep-washing down by the "Sike." There is no end to what one can do in the country "out-by"!

The names of some of the houses are very unusual. There is "Seldom Seen," a herd's cottage on the Stanegate; and "Cold Knuckles," an out-by homestead which was burnt down (in its efforts to warm itself, apparently) and has not been rebuilt. A pity that such a name should also perish in the flames!

CHAPTER XIII

PEEL CRAG TO WALLTOWN

On Peel Crag I was quite delighted with the Wall. It stretches for a long distance, eight or nine courses high and 6 feet wide, running along the more or less level summit of the Crag. I learned afterwards that the upper facing-stones on the southern side had been restored in 1909, as nearly as possible in the Roman manner, but that on the northern face they were untouched. One of the men who had helped in this restoration told me he had spent all the winter on Peel Crag, and "cawld wawk it was, with the stones." The south foundation of the Wall in this stretch stands on a higher level than the north.

If the Wall here had not been carefully restored it would have to have been replaced by an ordinary "dry dyke" to keep the sheep from falling down the Crag, which descends steeply to the north.

Investigations on Peel Crag and Winshields have gone to show that, in Severus's reconstruction of the Wall, most of the turrets in this neighbourhood were not restored, but, on the contrary, the insets { 133} where they had been recessed into the Wall have been filled up level with the face.

Ten years ago the positions of only five or six turrets were known along the Wall. Since then, over thirty have been found and six excavated. This leaves many which are still awaiting their turn to be opened.

Peel Crag ends abruptly, and the Wall, after bending southward, as usual at every gap, strikes steeply down into the gap, as is shown very clearly in the picture facing page 142 . The advancing enemy would be subject to a flank attack from the Roman defenders hidden in the safe shelter of the Wall.

The Wall then turns slightly northward, in order to gain the top of Winshields. It is in excellent condition on the low ground to the north of this gap, about 6 feet wide and nine courses high, and makes a good "road" to walk upon. The Wallditch recurs here, as always, whenever the Wall leaves the heights, if only for a few yards.

The road which runs north and south through the gap will take us down to "Twice Brewed," the Inn on Wade's Road, if we are wanting tea. I never found "Twice Brewed" very anxious to give me tea; I fancy they thought it a lot of trouble for one. There is "only one pair of hands to do everything," so they said. I asked if I could stay there for a week while I was painting, but there { 134} were many good reasons why I could not. First, it was the food; so difficult to get. I said I could live on bread and butter and eggs—"and bacon," I added, looking at the "backs" and the "streaky" hanging from the ceiling behind her.

And when she did ask "him," he said it would interfere with his regular customers! So that settled it; and I found somewhere in the neighbourhood that suited me better, and everybody was satisfied.

I stayed at a little farm where the husband worked "in the pits," and helped his wife with the farm in his spare time. The wife was such a neat, bright, pretty young thing. The husband was on night-shifts, and came home for his supper (or was it breakfast?) at five o'clock in the morning, so I used to have my breakfast at the same hour, and get off early. I think my record-day on the Wall started at 5.30 a.m. and ended at 10 p.m.—a long June day.

I used to bicycle along Wade's Road, leave my bicycle at the farm nearest to where I wanted to paint, and then walk from point to point along the Wall, with perhaps four different sketches going on, at the different periods of the day. Having started off one morning at 6 a.m., I wanted somewhere to { 135} leave my bicycle. A little house with an enclosed garden looked suitable, so I jumped off, and then saw to my amusement that a horse was standing looking in at the little bedroom window under the eaves, from which a hurried voice was calling to him: "I'm a-coming; I'm a-coming." Presently an old lady appeared, and I asked permission to leave my bicycle, saying I should be gone all day. She answered: "What odds? A'll be here." She then introduced the horse. "He always looks for his corn at half-past six sharp." And I often saw him after that, at the window. When I returned in the evening, rather late, the old lady said: "I was feart ye was fallen into t' Lough;" and then she produced my bicycle from a shed: "I thocht ye didna want yer tyres brusten wi' the sun."

But I have wandered a long way from Peel Crag. I did not need to go to "Twice Brewed" for tea; I was fortunate in having a friend near by who had often made tea for me when I was painting on the Wall. And to her I went now. I found she had visitors. A great event had taken place in the neighbourhood the night before; there had been a local subscription dance in the barn of Twice Brewed Farm (or East Twice Brewed, as it is sometimes called. It was the Inn in Hutton's time). The people "out-by" had never had such an opportunity before, though "in-by," at Haltwhistle, there were dances in plenty. Three of the dancers { 136} were calling—bonny young girls whose first dance it had been, and they were full of it. "It was champion!"—or "It was terrible nice!" (their highest terms of praise). They had breakfasted at five o'clock in the morning before going to bed. One of them had done her hair up for the first time in honour of the occasion. "There was a pocket of hairpins in it, more hairpins than hair, and yet it wouldn't keep up!" And so they ran on, while I enjoyed the "berry-cake" and gingerbread for which my hostess was famous. She was busy making one of the wadded quilts which one sees so often along the line of the Wall. And their rag-carpets, or "stubbed mats," as they call them, are sometimes like bits of stained glass! They frequently dye the cloth themselves, the exact colour they want, and make very elaborate and rich designs.

And now we come to Winshields, the highest point to which the Wall rises, 1230 feet above the sea. Below, on the left, is a farm-house known as "The Bog," and south of that, very near to Wade's Road, runs the Vallum.

It is impossible to miss the line of the Wall in the high regions, for it is always on the ridge. I cycled out one day through Caw Gap to the hamlet of Edges Green, along one of the little-used roads that run north into the lonely wastes, in order to make a sketch of Winshields from "out-by," { 137} that is to say, from the country to the north of the Wall. I had barely finished this sketch when a brilliant flash of lightning warned me to move, and it was soon followed by thunder and heavy rain. I found shelter, and a kind welcome (which included tea, as usual!) in the nearest house. My good hostess apologized for having "nothing" to give me for tea, because she lived so far "out-by," but I found an abundant spread—cheese, jam, scones, two kinds of cake, and white and brown bread. I wondered what "something" would have been! When it came to paying, she said: "Oh, it's nothin'; it's just a drink o' tea."

She had lived there twenty-one years, and told me they were often snowed up in winter and had to dig themselves out. "But we're nothin' to some folks," she added; "we're 'out-by' to Hautwissel, but we're 'in-by' to Hope-Alone!" She was referring to a lonely farm 2 miles farther north, standing at a height of 900 feet.

The works of the Vallum are splendid, as seen from the top of Winshields; the eye can follow them for a great distance. The best developed section is at Cawfields.

And the view is wide and beautiful, especially on such a changeable day as this, with all round a tumble of brilliant white clouds on a blue sky, but with heavy masses of black appearing in the east, and gradually blotting out the hills. Presently { 138} there is a change; the clouds break, and patches of sunlight begin to dance on the hills, which but a moment before were obscured. The rays of the sun are like a moving finger, tracing out the form of distant farm, and tree, and wall, on the hillside, and then passing on.

Then another change: heavy clouds appear to the north-west, and the rain comes down and blots out the Solway; which yet again gleams out in a long line of silver light before another half-hour has passed.

From the top of Winshields at midday I have more than once seen a huge red flare, like an evening sun, spring up and disappear again almost immediately. I am told this has been the destruction of ammunition dumps near Gretna Green. It must be a fearsome sight (and sound) at close quarters.

The Wall varies very much on Winshields; sometimes in tolerably good condition; sometimes a mere ruin.

The gaps here are called "slacks," a curious word, which I heard the people use for any depression or shallow dell.

Green Slack is a depression in the hill where there are traces of British dwellings; and then there is Lodham Slack, a deep heathery valley, where for some distance the Wall-ditch again becomes necessary, and runs, filled with rushes, on our right. There is very little heather along the line of the Wall.

Next comes Shield on the Wall, where there was a mile-castle, and where patches of rhubarb still mark the garden of the cottage which was built of the mile-castle stones.

The next gap is Bogle Hole, with very steep sides; and Winshields comes to an end at Caw Gap, where a road runs through to the north.

As I descended Winshields, and came down into the road, it was raining fast on the Nine Nicks, though still sunny where I stood.

The two gaps which follow are Bloody Gap and Thorny Doors—names significant of the many struggles they have witnessed. No doubt they were very "thorny" doors to the Picts, who tried to pass through them from the north!

The picture facing page 152 shows this gap. The Wall is in a very ruinous condition just at the gap, but much better preserved on the heights. The way in which it was made to bend to the south, to enable the Romans to enfilade the approaching enemy, is very clearly seen here.

Cawfields mile-castle can almost be discerned from this point, lying on the southern slope, just before the next gap, Pilgrims' Gap. In the distance are seen the Nine Nicks of Thirlwall, over which the Wall takes its farther course.

Seven or eight courses of facing-stones and the { 140} projecting foundations clearly visible gave me great satisfaction as I continued my way.

The wild-flowers were very wonderful, the yellow cistus, or rock-rose, growing all over the Wall, with its delicate blossoms and dark silver-lined leaves. Tall foxgloves sent up their spikes of nodding blossoms, like stately Roman Emperors, clothed in the imperial purple, while rosy wild thyme and blue speedwell prostrated themselves, like humble courtiers, at their feet.

Every writer on the Wall has, I believe, to do his duty in repeating Sir Walter Scott's verses about the flowers that grow on it—once, at least. His flowers came from the Nine Nicks, it is said, and not from this particular spot, but this seems a suitable opportunity for quoting his lines:

"Take these flowers, which, purple waving,
On the ruined rampart grew.
Where, the sons of freedom braving,
Rome's imperial standards flew.
Warriors from the breach of danger
Pluck no longer laurels there:
They but yield the passing stranger
Wild-flower wreaths for beauty's hair."

As the ground dips down to the next gap, Cawfields mile-castle is seen on the slope of the hill. This was the first mile-castle to be opened, by Mr. John Clayton, in 1848. In the following year Dr. Bruce took a party of pilgrims along the Wall, and { 141} they christened this gap between Cawfields mile-castle and quarry, "The Pilgrims' Gap."

The masonry of both northern and southern gateways is massive, and in splendid condition. It should be studied from north of the Wall also. The size of this mile-castle is 63 feet by 49 feet. The pivot-holes of the gates are very clearly seen.

It was now beginning to rain, and by the time I had got through the gap and into the Cawfields quarry yard it was coming down heavily, so I sheltered in the shed of the quarry, which is close by the Haltwhistle Burn, known as the Caw Burn between this point and its source.

At a bend of the stream are the remains of a Roman water-mill, such as is described by Vitruvius, writing early in the first century. Third-century pottery has been found there, and a coin of Trajan; also the remains of the water-shoot. The mill-stones are in Chesters Museum. A little defensive rampart ran across to protect it, from river to river.

We are now also near the Haltwhistle Burn Fort, which is not a mere temporary Roman camp, as was supposed, but a permanent fort, with two branch roads leading from the gates to the Stanegate, which here crosses the burn. The headquarters building, the barracks and other buildings, and the oven were excavated in 1907 by the late Mr. J. P. Gibson and Mr. F. G. Simpson. The fort { 142} was dismantled when Æsica, the next fort on the Wall, was built.

Burnhead farm-house is next passed, standing on the site of the Wall. The line of the Wall has verged to the north-west. The Wall-ditch is our guide.

North of the Wall here there is a large Roman temporary camp, 9 acres in extent, with rounded corners, as is usual, and a short ditch across the gateway-opening, the earth out of the ditch being thrown up into a mound called a "traverse," to lie across the opening and hinder an attack.

The rain had quite stopped; and, as I pushed on, I noted the traces of the building crossing the line of the Wall which was formerly thought to be a mile-castle. However, only a few yards away a real turret has been found. Shortly after, the Wall began to be in better condition. Two or three courses of facing-stones were in place on the south face for some distance.

Just here a stoat, carrying some sort of gruesome carcase, passed me, and disappeared into a loosely constructed part of the Wall. It ran up and down inside the Wall, furious with fright, making a noise like the clucking of an angry hen, and glaring at me through chinks between the stones. I fancy it had a young chicken.

PEEL CRAG, FROM THE GAP. HERE THE GREAT WALL BENDS
SOUTHWARD AS USUAL BEFORE DESCENDING INTO THE GAP

I pressed on quickly, for it was thundering in { 143} the distance, and soon reached Great Chesters, where the fort of ÆSICA stood. The farm-house here had a very beautifully kept lawn in front, and rows of pink columbines standing up neatly under the windows, which looked strange, though attractive, in such a wild spot.

The chief feature of the fort at Æsica is its western gateway, which represents the gateway just as the Romans finally left it. There has been a total blocking up of nearly all the gates. Probably only a narrow portal was left at the south.

The fort-walls were, as is usual, reinforced by a sloping bank of earth inside, which accounts for their excellent preservation. The inner buildings have been found to be reconstructions of the latter part of the third century.

One of the ditches which go right round the outer wall of the fort has been found below the foundations of the Great Wall, showing that the fort was built some time before the Wall. Four successive ditches all appear to go under the Great Wall at the north-west angle.

Extra ramparts of earth were thrown up on the western side, for additional protection. The position of Æsica was very weak on the west before the Wall was built.

A Roman road ran from the Stanegate to the { 144} southern gateway, and again from the western gateway towards Carvoran. It can be clearly traced.

Water was brought to this fort by the Romans by means of a very winding aqueduct, 6 miles long, from the head of the Caw Burn, 2¼ miles away.

Fig. 13.—Cross-section of Fort-wall, showing how it was reinforced on the inner side with earth.

The Wall abuts on the rounded north-west angle of the fort. The tower at this angle appears to belong to the Wall and not to the fort. It was evidently rebuilt when the Wall was built, like the one at Housesteads.

The remains at Æsica have been fenced round to protect them from cattle, but the fences are broken, so when I was there, sheep and lambs were disporting themselves on the very walls of the guard-chambers.

After passing Cockmount Hill farm-house, where, in spite of the bleak situation, white lilacs were blooming in the garden, and the regulation farm-house sycamore was firmly established, I entered a dense little wood, and here the Wall was in very satisfactory condition. Under the pine-trees it ran, its lower courses hidden by beautiful ferns and foxgloves, but I could see the projecting foundation stones in places. In the wood I met an old lady, with two pretty children, from the farm, gathering sticks. The children made just the right patches of colour there amongst the pine-needles, a patch of purple and a patch of emerald green.

South of Cockmount Hill many of the newly discovered causeways, referred to on page 34 , can be seen crossing the ditch of the Vallum.

The rain now began to come down in earnest, and I hurried past the next site of a mile-castle without even looking at it. As I reached Allolee farm-house, I decided I must take shelter. Two huge specimens of the pig-tribe saw me coming, and charged down the hill at me at full speed, grunting loudly. It needed all my determination to keep on in a straight line! But they faded away, { 146} with a disappointed look, just before they reached me.

I was most hospitably received at Allolee, hung out to dry, and fed, and entertained, to my heart's content. Two children, a boy and a girl, were with their mother in the farm-house kitchen. I told them the pig-incident, and all the sympathy I got was: "Poor dears! they were hungry!"

The little girl was engaged in cutting out a jumper for her doll, a very intricate process, and I was called on to help. She was very proud of the doll, and rightly so, for through an unfortunate accident it had become bald, and her mother had made it a very neat new wig out of her own hair, with grey strands in it.

The boy had a gramophone, and he selected "Lead, kindly Light" for my benefit. I don't know if he meant it to be appropriate, but it certainly was.

And I could not help thinking how the "kindly Light" was shining in that remote little farm-house through the kindness that was being shown to a stranger.

As I sat by the fire, they told me they had no coal-shortage, because a farmer near them had found coal on his farm.

Presently other members of the family dropped { 147} in—a father, and some older brothers; but still the rain poured down, and they would not let me go. Fortunately, I had a shelter for the night awaiting me, only a mile or so away, and as soon as ever the rain stopped, I took my leave, very grateful for all they had done.

It is a very short distance from the fir-wood which shelters Allolee to Mucklebank, the highest part of the Nine Nicks of Thirlwall, 860 feet above the sea. On its western side, just where the Wall makes its customary bend to the south, to protect the gap, stands a Wall turret. Both its northern and western sides are recessed into the Wall. It was uncovered in 1891 by the late Mr. J. P. Gibson of Hexham. A rabbit-hole gave him the clue as to the existence of this turret.

Criffel now appears, as a distant peak against the sky, on the right, and Walltown farm-house is seen lying ahead on the left, with a beautiful belt of trees round it. The gap here is a wide one, and the Wall-ditch comes into play again as usual. Signs of the "King's Well" are seen in the gap, where the rushes grow thick; this is where legend says some early Christian King was baptized. Could it have been the baptism of King Edwin of Northumbria by Paulinus in 627? It hardly seems likely, but that is what is suggested, though some say it was Egbert.

CHAPTER XIV

WALLTOWN TO GILSLAND

Walltown farm-house is built on the site of the Tower where lived John Ridley, the brother of the martyred Bishop, who writes to him as "My beloved brother, John Ridley, of the Walltown."

The farmer came and spoke to me while I was making a drawing of the house from the Walltown mile-castle.

"This is a very historic place. John Ridley lived here four hundred years ago, and here am I, John Ridley, living here still."

In Haltwhistle Church, only 3 miles away, there is a very interesting tombstone to the memory of John Ridley, with a long rhyming epitaph ( see facing page ).

Near the farm-house there is a very beautiful avenue of old trees, beech, sycamore, ash and a few Scotch firs. A park-like meadow lies in front, in which also are fine trees. Range after range of hills sweeps away to the south, the most distant being Cross Fell.

IHON REDLE
THATE SVM
TIM DID BE
THEN: LAIRD OF THE WALTON
GON IS HE OVT OF THES VAL OF MESRE
HIS BONS LIES VNDER THES STON
——————————————————————
WE MVST BELEVE BE GODS MERSE
INTO THES WORLD GAVE HES SON
THEN FOR TO REDEM AL CHRESNTE
SO CHRIST HAES HES SOVL WOVN
——————————————————————
AL FAETHFVL PEOPLE MAY BE FAEN
WHEN DATH COMES THAT NON CA FLE
THE BODE KEPT THE SOVL IN PAEN
THROVGH CHRIST IS SET AT LEBERTE
——————————————————————
AMONG BLESSED COMPANE TO REMANE
TO SLEP IN CHRISTE NOWE IS GON
YET STEL BELEVES TO HAV AGAE
THROVGH CHRIST A IOYFVL RESVRRECCION
——————————————————————
AL FRENDES MAY BE GLAD TO HAER
WHEN HIS SOVL FROM PAEN DID GO
OVT OF THES WORLD AS DOETH APPER
IN THE YEER OF OVR LORD
A · 1562
XX

The farm-house sounds kept coming up to me as I sat on the hill painting, till at last everything seemed to be asleep, even the farm-carts, which were turned with their shafts up in a row in the yard.

One evening, while I was sitting here, there was a wonderful effect of rainbow-coloured clouds above the sun. I never saw anything like it before. { 150} These clouds were in rays, radiating upwards from the sun as a centre, and they were just like wisps of rainbow. I can't describe them in any other way. They would form and then vanish, and form again, and one spot immediately above the sun always seemed more brilliant than all the rest.

The most modern version of "John Ridley" showed me the chives which are supposed to date back to Roman times, and which look like patches of fine grey grass growing on the flat rocks on the hillside below the mile-castle. I should never have found them without help. I pulled some up, and ate some of the tiny onion-like roots with my bread-and-cheese lunch, just to see how they must have tasted to the Roman sentries, who probably ate them on the same spot when they were off duty.

I had finished my sketch of Walltown, and it was still in my painting-case when I was sitting working late one evening on Sewingshields Crags. The case lay on the grass by my side. When it was time to go home, I strapped it up tight as usual. Next morning, when I looked at the sketch, there was a large, round, dry yellow patch spread out over it! A slug had walked into my painting-case, and in strapping it up I had compressed it on the middle of the picture. I removed it carefully with a pen-knife, and every scrap of colour came with it. The (probable) birthplace of the slug and the actual { 151} scene of its death are two of the pictures which are not included in this book.

I passed another Wall turret, with only the back wall standing. Just after that came a wide nick, full of trees, alders and hawthorn, still dripping from the recent rain. The sweet smell of wet young bracken greeted me all the time. Before the next nick there are some good bits of Wall, seven or eight courses high.

So up and down went the Wall, and I with it, clinging to the sides of the steepest nicks, with unswerving loyalty to plan! Sometimes its northern face, overhanging the cliffs, presented an unbroken surface of facing-stones for 5 or 6 feet; sometimes there was but a mere mound.

Several of the nicks are little groves of trees. Sheep were grazing everywhere, and rabbits still abounded. You might see them sitting up on the Wall, the evening sun shining through their transparent ears, with a (literally) blood-red glow; or playing all sorts of pranks, apparently without fear of intrusion.

The Wall finally runs straight to the edge of Greenhead Quarry, where an iron fence is placed, to keep the unwary (or too-faithful!) follower of the Wall from tumbling over the cliff, as, alas! the Wall has already done.

In the 1884 edition of Dr. Bruce's Handbook, there is an interesting picture of a Wall turret standing { 152} on the very edge of the quarry. Now it has gone; it has simply been quarried away!

Not only was the rain over, but the sun was sending long level golden rays over the tops of the hills as I came to the quarry; and this was the end of my Wall-walk for the day. They were standing at the door looking out for me when I arrived at the house where I was to spend the night, for I had been delayed by the storm.

I had felt indignant about that Wall turret, but the next day I realized the necessity of forgiving my enemies (in the shape of the Greenhead Quarry Company), for I accepted an invitation to visit the quarry before continuing my walk.

It is a whinstone quarry, needless to say, for it is busy cutting a large slice out of the basaltic ridge on which the Wall has clung for so many miles. I had previously been puzzled by the appearance of the Cawfields Quarry, which is quite a landmark for miles, making a rich yellow patch in the landscape. If basalt is a dark blue-grey stone, how can it make a yellow patch? Now was my opportunity to inquire. The manager told me that although whinstone is a dark blue-grey stone, yet it has a yellow "skin" which forms on it under certain conditions, as, for example, when the earth has got in through cracks. It is not a good building-stone, apart from its colour and the difficulty of dressing it, for capillary attraction draws the water { 153} up through it very freely, so that it always seems damp. "The Romans were not able to work it, as it can't be worked with wedges."

But somehow they did manage to cut deep ditches through it at the top of Limestone Bank! The great heaps of grey whin-dust (as it is called) lying at the quarry were waiting, I was told, to be made into blocks of artificial stone, being subjected to great pressure, and thus forming an artificial "conglomerate."

Before I left they gave me a practical illustration of how the stone is brought down by blasting.

The Wall continues its course along the fields opposite the quarry, forming a boundary wall between them. It is not in good condition (having so recently tumbled over the cliff, a frivolous person might say!), but its ditch is magnificent, and was full of primroses, very late for the time of year.

The Roman fort of MAGNA is just here, lying to the south of both Wall and Vallum, which now draw near together again, after their long separation. No doubt this fort was originally built by Agricola, long before the Wall was thought of. A recent discovery, given below, goes to prove that.

The site of the fort is to the west of the farm-house of Carvoran. I had no difficulty in tracing the north rampart and the north ditch. The Stanegate came up to the fort, direct from { 154} Corstorpitum and Cilurnum; and another Roman road, the Maiden Way, coming from the south, joined it near the south-east angle. The two roads are one as far as Gilsland, where they separate, the former aiming for Carlisle, and the latter for Birdoswald and Bewcastle.

During the recent war, a very interesting bronze vessel was found at Carvoran. "Like a bucket, only the top was where the bottom should be," was the graphic description given me locally, and when I saw the vessel at Chesters Museum, I felt how well it described it. It was a measure for corn, of the time of Domitian, the last emperor under whom Agricola served, but the emperor's name had been erased. It therefore dates from about 82 A.D., but it looks as if it had been made yesterday. The inscription is as clear and clean as ever, except where it has been erased.

"IMP*/*/*/***** CAESARE
AVG · GERMANICO · XV · COS
EXACTVS · AD · S · XVIIS
HABET · P · XXXIIX"

It states that the vessel was measured and tested to hold 17½ pints. It really holds 20 pints.

No doubt the garrison at Magna received a tribute of British corn in this measure.

It had long lain near the surface of the ground at Carvoran, and the postman had kicked at it many a time as he passed, thinking its rim was { 155} an old horseshoe. At last a boy on the farm had the curiosity to get a spade and dig it up.

The Wall-ditch runs along the fields, in splendid condition, down to the valley of the Tipalt. The path lies along the north margin of the ditch. It led me over a fence at the bottom of the second field into a beautiful little tree-filled glade, with great swelling undulations in the surface of the ground as it sloped rapidly down to the Tipalt. At the bottom of this glade Thirlwall Castle came suddenly into view, and I must confess I was greatly struck by the beauty of its situation.

Thirlwall Castle (shown in the Frontispiece) dates from the Middle Ages, and has figured largely in border warfare. It is built entirely of Roman stones from the Wall. It is now in a very ruined state, all its eastern side having fallen into the river Tipalt, above which it stands. A little wooden bridge crosses the stream just below the Castle, and on this I sat to paint the picture. Behind me was Holmhead farm-house where there is a Roman inscribed stone built upside-down into the back premises, and where a dear old lady lives, the patter of whose wooden clogs I could hear most of the time as she went about her work. She used to visit me at intervals, and brought me cushions to sit upon every day I was there.

I spent some happy times on the bridge, with the life of the little hamlet going on around me: { 156} the sound of the dirling-pin on washing-day, the beating of the bucket to summon the calves to be fed, the laughter of the children as they played in the stream, and the tap, tap of the hammer of the old man at the cottage of Dooven Foot opposite. He was busy making an erection by the side of the stream to keep his fowls within bounds.

One evening I saw something white, high up on the walls of the Castle, and went to see what it was. Two little girls, about nine years old, had climbed adventurously up the walls. They came down and talked to me; told me how some day "teacher" was going to take them to the source of the Tipalt, where it rose in the hills. We got out my map and studied it. We talked of the lonely farms "out-by," with their picturesque names, such as Far-Glow, and Hope-Alone, and Seldom-Seen; and we pictured the solitary lights shining out in the darkness, and the long, quiet winter evenings they must spend, sometimes cut off by snow from all communication with the outer world; until at last a voice from below called, in shocked tones, "Nora, don't ye know it's nine o'clock?" And so they hurried off to bed.

Holmhead is a typical Northumbrian farm-house, built of Roman stones from the Wall.

I painted a picture of it in August, when hay-making was going on. To our southern eyes, the method of carting hay in these parts seems { 157} very slow and laborious. The hay-wain is dispensed with altogether. Each hay-cock, or "pike," as they call them, is dragged separately, by means of chains and a windlass, on to a flat cart with low iron wheels, called a "bogie." The trundling of the iron wheels of the bogie on the stony roads becomes a very familiar sound in the hay-season. We timed the work as I sat painting on the hill, and we found it took three men one and three-quarter hours to bring in one pike and unload it, though it came from only two fields away! They call the process "leading" hay. The hilly character of the ground, no doubt, accounts for the method employed.

Continuing my walk, I crossed the little wooden bridge over the Tipalt, and then bore round to the left, past cottages, keeping now alongside the tawny little river, a true tributary of the "tawny Tyne."

A heron flew low down across my path, and dived between the low bushes on the river bank quite close to me. I peeped through them, and there he was, standing majestically on a stone in the middle of the river, fishing, looking very beautiful with his blue-grey plumage and dull yellow legs.

Soon I came to the railway; the Wall is quite lost in these low-lying fields, and one has to cross the railway by the only path, almost on the site of the Vallum. Passing a row of new cottages, called Thirlwall View, I came out into the road { 158} leading to Gilsland, and now I could see the Vallum in the fields across the road. I entered the nearest field-gate, and was now almost on the site of the Wall again, as far as Wallend Farm. Then the Wall-ditch appeared again, very conspicuous indeed, of great size and interest. I pursued it through grassy meadows, which seemed to be all ditch and rampart, and over stone walls, till I came to a thick group of trees beside a stream. Here were the farm-houses of Chapel House and Foul Town. A troop of young black cattle saw in me a hope of getting through the farm-gate, and followed me closely, even licking my hands as I opened the gate! But they did not get through. I could not find the "Hadrian" stone at Chapel House which Dr. Bruce refers to, and they could tell me nothing of it at the farm; but I understand it has been taken to the Black Gate Museum, Newcastle. I crossed a bridge over the stream and continued westward, Orchard House, Gilsland and the Shaws Hotel coming into view on the green slopes on the right.

At the Red House, Gap, a pet lamb with a garland round its neck, made overtures to me. At the White House, I turned into the farm-yard, and went to examine the centurial stone mentioned by Dr. Bruce. It was thickly whitewashed over, and quite illegible. I had seen it so on a previous visit, and had begged to be allowed to remove { 159} the whitewash, much to the amusement of the farmer's wife. However, she humoured me, and brought me a bowl of warm water and a sponge. It was all the kinder of her, because it was Gilsland show-day, a great occasion, and she was busy sending off the men and the animals in all their bravery, with coats being brushed, and manes and tails properly combed out—all in the farm-yard.

I left the stone looking beautifully clear, though it made what the farmer probably thought was an ugly dark patch in the white wall; but I begged them to keep it so when next the wall was whitewashed.

So I was disappointed to find they had forgotten. No wonder Dr. Bruce himself failed at first to find it on his last visit; that is what I was told had happened.

After leaving White House, I found the Wallditch again magnificent between Gap and Gilsland Station, and the mounds of the Vallum running on a higher level than the Wall, for a wonder.

The line of the Wall crosses a side-road to the south of Gilsland Station, and continues through fields to the Poltross Burn, which is the boundary between Northumberland and Cumberland. I followed it, but coming to a stone wall, with piggeries and bee-hives set up close against it, blocking my path, I had to climb the wooden fence on to the railway embankment, and so came without difficulty { 160} to the edge of the burn, just where the Wall must have crossed it.

There is a curious stratification of the rocks here; sloping ledges, from 4 to 6 feet high, make a series of great natural steps down. There must be a drop of some 20 feet from the bed of the stream, where the Wall crossed it to the point where the railway arch crosses it, only a few yards away.

Farther to the south, the banks of the stream are lined with Roman stones, where the Vallum crossed it; also the sides of the Vallum-ditch. This is not found elsewhere.

Crossing the burn, I climbed the steep bank on the opposite side, which is planted thick with trees, and came out just at the site of the mile-castle which is known as Poltross Burn mile-castle. It was evidently placed here to guard the passage of the stream. It was excavated by the late Mr. J. P. Gibson and Mr. F. G. Simpson in 1910, but has been covered up again, and only a cairn of stones between the stream and the railway-line marks its situation. Locally, it was known as "The King's Stables" by the country people. The discovery in this mile-castle of a flight of stairs leading up to the rampart-walk is especially valuable, because from them a calculation of its height could be made. It was found to be 12 feet above the first-period floor, thus confirming previous calculations of its probable height. There was also a complete { 161} arrangement of inner buildings with walls 2 feet thick.

The Wall can be seen from here running through the Vicarage garden, the other side of the railway.

I crossed the line opposite the Vicarage, and then cut across the fields, past the schools, into the road.

Calling at the Vicarage, I was most kindly received by the Vicar, who is always willing to welcome pilgrims of the Wall. He showed me the fine piece of Wall in his garden, the most striking feature of which is the unusually wide foundation which has been laid bare. There were also two Roman altars, which had long formed part of the altar-steps at the little Saxon Church of Over Denton, 2 miles away; and some centurial stones, ballista balls and mill-stones. He pointed out where the Vallum also ran through his garden, for Vallum and Wall are very near together here.

At Over Denton Church the original chancel arch is a Roman gateway brought from Amboglanna, and the font is formed from the capital of a Roman pillar.

Close by Gilsland Vicarage lives Miss Ewart, of Raise House, a favourite resort of archæologists, and students of the Wall, and to her I appealed for lunch.

CHAPTER XV

GILSLAND TO LANERCOST

After lunching at Gilsland, I started off again at three o'clock, intending to make only a short distance that day, and to sleep at the Lanercost Temperance Hotel. I picked up the line of the Wall where I had dropped it—at the Vicarage. Keeping westward along the road, I turned into a field-path on the right, just past a new cottage known as "Roman Wall Villa," behind which, remains of the Wall are to be seen. This path leads through meadows right along the line of the Wall, with the lovely little river Irthing twisting its way below on the right, half-hidden by the trees which overhang it.

Fragments of the core of the Wall are seen at intervals, and presently the path runs right along the bottom of the deep Wall-ditch. Great trees grow on the top of its northern mound. So we come to Willowford farm-house, where for the moment all traces of the Wall disappear, no doubt because its stones were used to build the house.

I descended the steep little grassy hill on which { 163} the house stands, and crept through the barbed-wire fence at the bottom into a flat meadow on a level with the river. There, in the hedge, were Wall-stones in plenty, and again the path lay in the ditch, though it had been very nearly levelled, probably by the plough. The river Irthing was still on the right, curving round to meet the line of the Wall. Just before they meet, the Wall disappears again, and the low bank of the river is covered with undergrowth. The opposite bank is very high and precipitous, thickly clothed with trees and bushes; but on its summit can be seen clinging a precious bit of the Wall, seven courses high.

Keeping to my resolve of following the Wall through thick and thin, I took off my shoes and stockings, and crossed the river, after searching in vain for any signs of how the Wall had crossed it. Where it had crossed it I could guess, from the overhanging piece of Wall in front, and the line along which I had come.

I am told by those who have the right to express an opinion that there certainly is a bridge buried here, on the east bank, and that it's simply "asking" to be excavated!

The river was fairly low, so I was able to cross dry-footed, jumping from stone to stone, with only one hazardous jump in the middle, where the current of the stream flows deepest. I was now { 164} beneath the cliffs which Jenkinson in his Guide describes as "now quite precipitous and impossible to ascend." But it was not impossible at all, though difficult. The thick growth of trees and bushes was both a hindrance and a help, for, though it barred my way, it gave more foothold on the steep bank.

At last I came out on the top, close to the fine bit of Wall still standing, and could examine it at leisure. It is making straight for Birdoswald farm-house, now not far away, and the eye can follow it along the boundary hedge between cornfields and pasture-land.

Close by, on the high bank of the Irthing, are traces of the Harrow's Scar mile-castle, placed here to guard the passage of the stream.

This bank of the Irthing, where the Wall still clings at the top, was a perfectly bare, sandy bank in 1848, without trees or undergrowth, as shown in H. B. Richardson's drawing in Newcastle. In 1801, when Hutton climbed it, he speaks of "brambles," so it would almost look as if there had been a landslip on this bank between 1801 and 1848. Now it is covered very thickly with vegetation, especially low down near the river.

When I was making this sketch, I walked one day to the bank of the river, a little below the Wall, { 165} and there I suddenly saw the figure of a girl appear in a tree overhanging the water on the other side. I looked again, and I saw she was seated in a little wooden chair suspended from a wire, and was pulling herself across by another wire, both of which crossed from side to side. I waited for her to land, and then I asked: "Do you think I might use that?" She said: "It belongs to Underheugh, that farm down there, but I dare say you might."

I promptly went to Underheugh and asked permission. The farmer's wife said: "Oh ay, ye may if ye like, but ye'd do better by plodgin'."

She laughed. "Oh, it's just takin' off yer shoes and stockin's and goin' throo on yer feet."

So when it was time to go home, I ventured into the chair and laid hold of the wire rope, and pulled. I only had one hand, as the other clutched my sketching-things, so it was rather hard work. It was literally uphill work after I got to the middle, though to start with it was downhill, and the thing almost went of itself. It felt funny to be suspended from a rope over the middle of the Irthing, in this very primitive "chair."

I asked at Underheugh what they called the { 166} arrangement, but they could not say. Then I inquired at Birdoswald. "Oh, you mean a sort of an aeroplane?"

That was the nearest I could get! And "a sort of an aeroplane" it will always be to me! I used it several times after that.

A short walk from the overhanging Wall brought me to AMBOGLANNA, at Birdoswald. This is the largest of all the forts, occupying 5½ acres as against the 5¼ of Cilurnum. Like Cilurnum it has six gateways, an extra and smaller gateway to east and west, lying to the south of the main eastern and western gateways.

Unlike Cilurnum, but like Borcovicium and Æsica, its northern wall is joined, at its rounded corners, by the Great Wall. The circumscribing ditch of the fort has been found underneath the Great Wall, as at Æsica, showing that the fort is earlier than the Wall.

An older fort is shown to have stood here, because the ditch which surrounded it has been traced, cutting across the present fort to the north portal of the eastern gateway, and this ditch can be traced again in one or two places westward.

The north gate of the original fort would be about on the site of the Principia of the present one. The excavations conducted by Professor Haverfield and Mr. and Mrs. T. H. Hodgson, between 1895 and 1900, prove that the fort was extended north and south at the same time, northwards over the { 167} ditch of the older fort, and southwards on to the Vallum. The south-west angle tower is where the north mound of the Vallum ought to be. The Vallum curves round the original fort, and makes a straight course east. To the west it has been entirely destroyed by a landslip.

Fig. 14.—Comparative Plans of Gateways. (After John Ward.) Scale: 30 feet to 1 inch.

It is a very steep fall to the Irthing on the south of the fort. Possibly the river has changed its course 100 yards since Roman times. Twenty years ago its course was changed 60 yards in a few hours at Underheugh (just under these cliffs to the east) by a flood.

The granary, just in front of the farm-house, has air-passages underneath, to keep the corn both { 168} dry and cool, as at Corstopitum. The gateways have as usual been built up in the later periods of the Roman occupation, and the floors raised. The north portal of the large eastern gateway has been blocked, and the west portal of the southern gateway. Both of these gateways are in good preservation, especially the eastern one, where one of the imposts is specially noticeable.

Inscriptions found at Birdoswald confirm the Notitia statement that the first cohort of the Dacians, styled the Ælian, was quartered here.

The picture facing this page represents the view from Amboglanna referred to by the late Lord Carlisle, in his Diary in Turkish and Greek Waters . He says:

"Strikingly, and to any one who has coasted the uniform shore of the Hellespont, and crossed the tame low plain of the Troad, unexpectedly lovely is this site of Troy, if Troy it was. I could give any Cumberland borderer the best notion of it, by telling him that it wonderfully resembles the view from the point just outside the Roman camp at Birdoswald: both have that series of steep conical hills, with rock enough for wildness, and verdure enough for softness; both have that bright trail of a river creeping in and out with the most continuous indentations: the Simois has, in summer at least, more silvery shades of sand."

While busy over this book, I came across a photograph { 169} of the Greek view at a friend's house, and though I recognized the resemblance, I felt that Cumberland could well hold its own with Greece.

From Amboglanna the Wall and the road follow the same line as far as the village of Banks. For 500 yards west of Birdoswald, the Wall is the south boundary of the road. From that point onwards to Banks the Wall is the foundation of the road. This was ascertained by excavations made by the late Mr. J. P. Gibson and Mr. F. G. Simpson, who found that two Wall turrets (known as High House and Apple-tree turrets) come within the road-boundary, as also does a quarter of the mile-castle known as High House mile-castle. In these turrets and the mile-castle four floors were traceable, the dates of which are roughly as follows, beginning with the highest:

1. About 300 A.D.
2.            210 A.D. under Severus.
3.            158 A.D.     "     Antoninus Pius.
4. 120-125 A.D.         "     Hadrian.

The Vallum on the left and the Wall-ditch on the right call for notice all along this stretch of road; and here also is something unique, the turf-wall, running to meet the Great Wall at Wallbowers. As has been mentioned, it starts from near Harrow's Scar mile-castle, and is like the string of a bow, the Great Wall being the bow.

On the "Pilgrimage" in September 1920, sections { 170} of the turf-wall were cut to show the black and white lines marking the limits of the turves. The vegetable-matter turns black, and bleaches the soil that comes next to it.

At Coome Crag I turned off to the left to see the Roman quarrymen's marks. I knocked at the lodge-door to ask for a guide, but only a dog replied, and he was chained. So I followed the path, which runs through a beautiful wood, sloping down towards the Irthing; and I had no difficulty in finding the quarry, and the Roman names, cut rather near the bottom of a large mass of rock with a flat wall-like surface. How surprised "SECVRVS" and "IVSTVS" and "MATHRIANVS" would have been if they had been told that thousands would follow the path to the quarry, like pilgrims to a shrine, just to see the names they had cut in an idle moment during their lunch-hour! It may be that they were employed by Severus in repairing the Wall, for there is another inscription, "FAVST ET RVF COS," and Dr. Bruce tells us that Faustinus and Rufus were Consuls in 210 A.D., just when Severus was in Britain.

Near Leahill farm-house, on the right of the road, the Wall-ditch is in excellent condition.

It had been very hot and close in the Coome Crag woods, but now there was a cool exhilarating breeze. On the left the Lake-mountains had come clearly into view, Helvellyn, Blencathra and snow-capped { 171} Skiddaw. I passed a number of cottages which had been allowed to fall into disrepair and would soon disappear altogether.

In the village of Banks, or Banks Hill, I saw an Inn, called "The Traveller's Rest," and thought of tea, but, alas! there was no one at home. The Banks Burn crosses under the road at the foot of a little hill beyond the Inn, and in a field this side of the burn, there can be seen a great piece of the Wall with bushes growing out of it. Just after crossing the burn, the road ceases to run east and west, and instead cuts the line of the Wall at right-angles. I stood in the turn doubtfully, wondering how I could still continue to follow the Wall, as a private garden evidently lay beyond the hedge which faced me. Two children, and a man carrying a suit-case, were also waiting in the road—waiting, it appeared, for a motor-car, just coming into sight. Fortunately for me, this was the owner of the garden, with his two grandchildren, and he kindly sent one of them to ask if I was looking for the Roman Wall. Of course I said, "Yes"; and then he shouted: "Wait till I have packed the children into the car, and I'll take you to see it." So I waited, and then followed him along a side-road into the garden of Hare Hill, where suddenly, round a corner, we came full on a splendid piece of Wall. This is the piece of which Hutton says: "I viewed this relic with admiration. I saw no { 172} part higher." When he saw it, the facing-stones were all gone, but now fifteen courses have been restored on the north side by Lord Carlisle's architect. It stands 9 feet 10 inches high.

As we came away, I remembered there should be a mile-castle close to this piece of Wall, and I wanted to turn back to look for it. My guide was quite excited about it; he had no idea there was a Castle at Hare Hill! But we would ask his wife about it first. So we went to the house, and as we entered, he called: "Mrs. R——, here's a lady to see you." I said: "Mr. R—— has kindly been showing me the Roman Wall in your garden." He turned sharply on me and said: "Now how on earth did you know my name?" I explained that it had not required a wizard to guess it, under the circumstances!

Mrs. R—— could throw no light on the subject of the mile-castle, and her husband continued to murmur: "To think I should have had this place twenty years without knowing there was a castle in the garden!" I again suggested going back to the Wall to look for it; but no! he said we would go and ask some neighbours who lived in a long, low, whitewashed thatched cottage close by, and who "ought to know, for they have lived there over four hundred years."

I found this a very interesting visit. The family consisted of two brothers and a sister, all { 173} unmarried. They were the last remaining members of the Burtholme family, who have occupied this cottage since the sixteenth century. It had been the village smithy, and their father had been the last of a series of "Thomas Burtholmes, blacksmiths," who figure largely in the parish register. The cottage was full of tokens of antiquity. On the old dresser there was the most beautiful and complete set of pewter plates that I have ever seen, each plate marked "T. B.," and I understood that Lady Carlisle had more than once borrowed them for exhibition at Naworth Castle on some special occasion.

But as for the Roman mile-castle, they also had never heard of it; so we went back to the Wall, and there, quite clearly discernible, it lay, between the line of the Wall and the Hare Hill cottage; and though nothing but grassy mounds could be seen, still it was something to have a "castle" of any sort in one's garden, so the proud owner thought! He told me he was a Tynemouth man, and had come to stay at Lanercost Temperance Hotel many years ago, when paralyzed after a bad smash-up in a railway accident; and there, in the country peace and quiet, he had learned to walk again. No wonder that he loved the neighbourhood, and had been glad to secure this cottage for his permanent use.

Lanercost Temperance Hotel was my objective { 174} that evening, and he offered to show me the shortest way, continuing the line of the Wall from his garden. We went through a farm-yard and along the fields, seeing bits of the Wall in the hedge at frequent intervals, and the ditch in the next fields to the north. Below, on the left, ran the Vallum, sometimes clearly seen, and sometimes disappearing in the Priory Woods.

Up Craggle Hill the Wall-ditch is very strongly marked, and in one place is full of water.

There is a lovely view from this hill, stretching right over Carlisle to the Solway, and to Scotland, and the Lake-mountains.

At Hayton-gate Farm we left the Wall and turned down southwards, crossing the Vallum, and soon coming into the lane which leads to Lanercost Priory.

The Vicar of Lanercost was standing outside the ancient gateway of the Priory; the evening service was just over, and he was apparently taking leave of the last departing member of his congregation. My guide performed a rough-and-ready introduction as we drew near, shouting: "Mr. —— here's a pilgrim to see you who has walked from Wallsend." The Vicar came forward and shook hands, and then kindly promised, at my request, to let me have the keys of the Priory at nine o'clock next morning, instead of the usual hour of ten. The beauty of the ruins in their warm red stone struck { 175} me very forcibly as I saw them now for the first time in the evening light.

I continued my way to the Lanercost Hotel, over the picturesque stone bridge (dated 1723) which here crosses our now familiar friend, the Irthing. "The last departing member of the congregation" was just mounting his bicycle, but he kindly stopped to point out to me the remains of an ancient bridge on the north side of the river, possibly a Roman bridge, the position of which indicates that the river has changed its course. He then asked if I wanted to see Naworth Castle the next day. It was not really in my plan, for I had been told it was not open to visitors till two o'clock, and that would have delayed me too long, and I said so. I did not know I was speaking to Lord Carlisle's agent, but now he gave me his name, and courteously offered to show me the castle in the morning, after my visit to the Priory. Such an opportunity was not to be missed, so I thankfully accepted.

It was a blow for the moment when I reached the Hotel to find that they could not take me in. Week-end visitors occupied all their bedrooms, and the "all" was probably not many. However, the proprietress told me there were houses along the road to Brampton where I might get taken in. I was sorry not to stop at Lanercost, for the Inn is in a beautiful spot, with the woods of Naworth Park { 176} just opposite, and the Irthing flowing past almost at its doors. Besides, every step I took now would be one step farther from the Wall, and would add to my journey on the following day. But there was no help for it, so I pushed on up the steep hill towards Brampton, with Naworth Park on my left, and passing on the right Boothby, where the old Dowager Lady Carlisle had made her home.

I called at several cottages, but no one could give me a bed. It was now beginning to get dark, and I was thinking it would soon be too late to call at another house, when I came to one which looked more promising. In answer to my knock, an old man appeared with a long white beard, and a face which would have done credit to an apostle. When I told him what I wanted, he looked doubtful, but asked me to come in. I followed him along the passage, through the kitchen, where a cheerful log-fire was burning, and through the garden to a cow-byre at the back of the house. There, in spite of my desire to find a haven, I forgot everything else in looking at the picture before me. A young woman was milking the cow, and a picturesque white-haired woman held the lantern for her. The face of the younger woman, seen in the lantern-light, looked really beautiful. A small boy and a collie dog made up the picture. There was something in the lighting and the grouping—in the whole scene—which enthralled me. I said to myself: { 177} "It is worth anything to have seen that," and it seemed hardly necessary to ask if they could take me in. I knew quite well that I had come to the right house. And so I had! They made no difficulty about the lateness of the hour, about the bed not being made up, nor any details of that kind. They said I looked tired, and that was enough for them. And indeed I was hungry, for I had had nothing since lunch at Gilsland, and had been walking all the time. So I did full justice, first to the new-laid eggs and "berry-cake," and then to the roomy feather-bed, where I slept till daybreak.

Next morning my kind hostesses filled the crannies of my haversack with lunch, and I set out to visit Lanercost Priory.

CHAPTER XVI

LANERCOST TO BLEATARN

Lanercost Priory is built almost entirely of Roman stones. Dr. Bruce was of opinion that there must have been a fort on the site, and that, as the river Irthing was crossed by a Roman bridge close by, it might have been thought necessary to guard the passage. However, recent opinion is entirely against this view.

The nave of the Priory church is used as the parish church; the choir and transepts are roofless. It must have been very beautiful when the building was complete, though indeed the ruins are beautiful as they are.

In the crypt are Roman altars, and a sculptured stone representing Jupiter and Hercules. One of the altars is dedicated by the hunters of Banna to the holy god Silvanus, and suggests how these Roman officers may have spent their leisure. The situation of "Banna" has not been identified.

From Lanercost I visited Naworth Castle, but, interesting and beautiful as it is, it hardly can find { 179} a place in the limits of this book. Now if only it could present a claim to be built of Roman stones——!

From Naworth I made straight for Hayton-gate, on the Wall, to pick up the thread at the right place. The farmer's wife came out and followed me, as I turned westward along the Wall. I looked back after a little. "Ye'll be thinking I'm following ye," she cried. "It's they hens; they're awfu' for laying away." And with each dive into the nettles, she brought out an egg.

The next farm is Randelands. Here the ground begins to slope down towards Burtholme Beck, and the village of Burtholme is away on the left. A mile-castle appears, covered more thickly with buttercups and daisies than the rest of the field. To the north is Walton Wood, which is so dense that the country people say that a stranger placed there could never find his way out.

Before crossing the road which leads to the right to Garthside Farm, I saw several strips of Wall in the hedge, the core including great blocks of red sandstone, such as is used in the building of Lanercost Priory. Oaks, hawthorns and alders were growing on the top, while below was a perfect flower-garden—primroses, bluebells, campion, speedwell, garlic and the greater stitchwort.

From the Garthside road, the Wall-ditch formed the boundary between a field of wheat and a { 180} hay-field, so I was able to follow it till I came out into another lane at Howgill. Here in the farmyard I began to search for the inscribed stone, mentioned by Dr. Bruce as being in the wall of an outhouse. Two men were driving out a flock of sheep, and in answer to my "Good day," one of them said: "I know what ye're looking for; wait a bit and I'll show ye." He led me through the farm-yard, and through a wicket-gate into a garden; and there, lying on the ground, overgrown with moss, and almost buried in ground-elder, was the stone. It seemed to me that it was much safer when it was built into the outhouse. My guide said it was a long time since he had shown it to anybody, and I could well believe it.

Dr. Bruce says of it: "It seems to record the achievements of a British tribe, the Catuvellauni. Tacitus tells us that Agricola took Southern Britons with him to the battle of Mons Graupius; Hadrian and Severus may have been similarly accompanied in their expeditions."

From Howgill I had to turn north along the lane a little way in order to strike the Wall again.

I soon came to Low Wall, the next farm, and now I began to have visions of a glass of milk with my lunch. It was very quiet in the farm-yard, and I guessed the household must be at dinner, and so it proved.

The door on which I knocked opened straight { 181} into the living-room, and remains of soup and potatoes were on the table, from which men and women were just rising.

Miss B——, the daughter, who answered my knock, insisted on taking me into the parlour to eat my lunch, and when she had fetched some milk, she sat and talked to me. She told me of their experiences during the war, how they had had refugee Belgians close to them, at Howgill—relays of Belgians, some quite nice, and others "a rough lot." These last used to catch and eat the blackbirds, besides sucking their eggs, and had made quite a stir in this quiet neighbourhood.

My lunch finished, she took me back to the living-room, and introduced me to her mother, a dear old lady of ninety-one. When I told her I was walking to Bowness, she at once began to recall a visit she had paid eighty years ago, when she had gone to stay at Peartree House, Bowness, on account of her health. She made the journey by canal, from Carlisle to Port Carlisle, and had evidently enjoyed the whole experience. This canal was only open from 1823 to 1854.

When I got up to go, Miss B—— popped on her sunbonnet and came with me. She showed me where a mile-castle had been excavated, in 1900, in one of their fields, north of the house.

In the field north of Dovecote, I thought I saw traces of a turret, but I could not be sure.

The core of the Wall is now clearly to be seen, all the way to the King Water, but both Wall and ditch disappeared in a field of young corn which slopes down to the water's edge.

The King Water flows from north to south at this point, right across the line of the Wall. As is so often the case with northern rivers, it has a very steep bank on one side, while the ground slopes gently down on the other. There is nothing to show how the Wall was carried across this stream, but I found it very easily fordable, by stepping-stones just where the Wall must have been. On this May day, the steep western bank was a riot of colour. The colour of the earth of the bank is red, almost pink, from the red sandstone; on it was growing a perfect blaze of yellow broom. With a deep blue sky overhead, and the fresh green of the grass and trees, the whole colour-scheme was very much inclined to be garish—not to say "Futurist"—in character!

I crossed the stream, and climbed the red bank, threading my way between the bushes of broom, from which the bees were raising a continuous drone. It was easy to pick up the Wall again on the top of the cliff; a great ash was growing just on the Wall, at the cliff's edge. On the right at this point a little stream runs into the King Water, forming a natural Wall-ditch. Broom and blue-bells made a harmony of blue and gold in its narrow gorge.

I found it better now to descend into the road, which runs on the left close by, keeping parallel to the Wall. It soon brought me into the village of Walton (Wall-town), a pretty village, with delightful views of the valley of the Irthing and of the Lake-mountains.

I followed the road past the Black Bull Inn, which stands on the exact site of the Wall; and then, to keep the trail, I had to turn off on the right, along a lane which led to a field-path to Sandysike farm-house.

The farm-buildings at Sandysike are very ancient-looking and picturesque. There is a hexagonal cart-shed built of stone, with a tiled roof, and an old barn, of brick, with strikingly lofty round-headed arches; but I did not see the Roman sculptured stones of which it boasts.

The track of the Wall can be followed down to the edge of the Cam Beck, the ditch being our guide; but here for the first time I deliberately abandoned it! I could not cross the Cam Beck where the Wall had crossed it without getting very wet and dirty, and part of my compact with myself was to keep clean and dry, if possible. The river cuts its way at this point very deeply through the red sandstone. Sheer red banks stand out of the water. A very high weir across the stream would have made { 184} crossing easier, but a large tree-trunk had fallen over it, and blocked the way. Already grass and plants were growing out of its slippery black sides.

Reluctantly I turned back, and took the path to Castlesteads, the house of Mrs. Johnson, whose garden is on the site of a Roman fort. The path brought me through woodland and shrubbery to a house which proved to be the head gardener's. The barking of a dog produced the gardener, who took me to the lawn which represents the centre of the fort. A little summer-house at the edge of the lawn serves as protection to a number of Roman altars, and other sculptures, found within the fort.

They were all in the red sandstone of the neighbourhood, some covered with a bright greenish-yellow lichen. The largest altar was dedicated to Jupiter by the second cohort of the Tungrians.

The site of this fort lies between the Wall and the Vallum, which latter curves to the south to avoid it. This was proved by excavations made by Professor Haverfield and Mr. and Mrs. T. H. Hodgson in 1902. They traced accurately the position of the Vallum in this section of the fortifications for a distance of about 4 miles, from Garthside to the south of Cumrenton—a work needing endless patience. On one occasion many trenches had been dug and measurements taken, but Mr. Hodgson had not time to plot it all out till the end of the season. When he did so, all the points where { 185} the Vallum had been struck fell into one straight line!

The walls and gateways of this fort appear to have been standing until 1791, when the ground changed hands, and the house of Castlesteads was built. Then the standing masonry was removed, and the whole site levelled.

The gardener showed me the way from the back of the summer-house, through woods that sloped down to the Cam Beck, to a little bridge that crossed the stream and led me out of the grounds. And so I came to Cambeck Hill Farm, which lies on the line of the Wall.

But I was not satisfied till I had traced the Wall back eastward through the fields to the edge of the Cam Beck opposite the place where I had failed to cross. The view from this side is most striking, with the red sandstone walls, and the steep steps of the weir. I was very glad I had not missed it. A Roman altar from Castlesteads was built into this weir for a time, but some one put in a plea for it, and it was rescued.

The field gate which leads to the river is in the Wall-ditch, which at this point is cut deep out of the sandstone.

I tried to make the crossing from this side, but it was impossible. It made it no easier that the wet sandstone was soft , as well as slippery, and crumbled away under one's feet.

The next farm-house to Cambeck Hill is Beck, which is partly built of Roman stones. A wooden foot-bridge over a beck is crossed just before the farm is reached. Beyond Beck is Headswood, which stands high up on a grassy knoll. The Wall-ditch and the Vallum-ditch can be clearly seen from Beck, running up this grassy knoll, one to the right, and the other to the left, of the farm and farm-buildings of Headswood. Two or three minutes' walk and a short climb brought me into the farm-yard, where a part of the Wall-ditch is used as a duck-pond.

Just in front of the farm-buildings it has been filled up level with the ground, for the convenience of traffic.

The village of Newtown of Irthington soon came into sight. It has a village green with a large pond. Its white-washed cottages stand on three sides of this green, on which battalions of ducks and geese were pluming themselves.

For the short distance between Newtown and White Flat, the "pilgrim of the Wall" must leave the fields and follow the road towards Irthington. On the left of the road, traces of a mile-castle are visible.

Beyond White Flat the fields are ploughed, but the ditch could be faintly discerned. The path { 187} now ran through a meadow gay with wild flowers, but there was more food for the botanist than for the antiquarian. My thoughts were beginning to turn to another kind of food, for it was after five o'clock, and it seemed a long time since I was at Low Wall, though actually it was only three miles as the crow flies.

I saw a substantial farm-house on my right, so I turned off in hopes of getting at least some milk. My hopes were super-abundantly realized. The farmer and his wife were on the point of sitting down to tea themselves, having just driven back from Carlisle, and with true northern hospitality they invited me to share their meal. I shall not soon forget that visit, and the kindness shown to a pilgrim.

They showed me a centurial stone built into the wall of their house just above the door, and protected by the wooden porch. Beside it are two other Roman stones with very clear broaching. They told me they had shown them to only one other visitor since they came to live there eight years ago.

When I left, the farmer kindly insisted on coming with me as far as the Wall, to make sure I did not miss my way. He brought me to the "long strip of the Wall in an encouraging state" mentioned by Dr. Bruce. It is planted with oaks—quite large trees; and its ditch at this point is very impressive.

It is in this neighbourhood that the Wall and the Vallum approach each other within 35 yards.

At Old Wall, the next farm, many Roman stones are seen in the buildings, and there are great piles of them lying in the roadway, amongst them what looks like a lintel. The Wall-ditch is clearly seen between the road and the house.

It came on to rain as I approached Old Wall, but, hoping that it would not be much, I pushed on. I thought I could get to Wallhead and then strike down into the Carlisle Road.

A drove-road runs along the site of the Wall, a grassy lane with high hedges, so I could follow this; but before I reached Bleatarn the rain came down in such torrents that I was compelled to leave the Wall and get down into the main road as quickly as possible. So I turned south until I saw ahead of me the gleam of the rain on a macadamized surface. The rain was still streaming down, "like knitting-needles," as some one has said, and there seemed to be no one about. At High Crosby I inquired for an Inn, and was told there was one at Low Crosby. By this time I was so wet I should have been glad to get in anywhere, but the landlady of the Stag at Low Crosby was quite uncompromising. "We don't give beds," said she. I asked for supper. No, she could not give supper either. "Might I come in and write a letter?" "Ay, ye can do that." So I threaded my way { 189} amongst the men who were sitting round little tables, with their pipes and beer, in the only room of the Inn, conscious that I was leaving a wet trail in the sawdust on the floor; and I found a little table in a corner and wrote my letter. Then I called the landlady, and, giving her a shilling, I asked if she could have my letter delivered at a house in the neighbourhood early the next day. She took the shilling and held it up between her finger and thumb. "Do I deliver this with the letter?" said she.

"No; that's for yerself," came in a chorus from the men sitting round, who had been taking more interest than I knew!

Just then there was a little whispering between the landlady and a man who had just arrived. She came forward. "This gentleman says that he and his wife will be pleased to take you into Carlisle in their car, if you would like." Would I like? Could there be any doubt? I was still four miles from Carlisle, and it was now dark, and still pouring. So I accepted gladly, and was very soon set down in the city, at the door of a nice quiet Temperance Hotel, suitable for a pilgrim in my sodden state.

The next morning was clear and bright, and I made an early start for Old Wall, in order to follow the stretch of Wall I had missed because of the rain.

I will describe the walk from east to west as { 190} before, although I traversed it first from west to east.

As I drew near to Bleatarn from Old Wall, I noticed a tawny-brown duck-pond on the right. This was part of the Wall-ditch.

Bleatarn itself is picturesquely situated on a grassy hill, above a pond full of reeds (the "Blue Tarn"). The whitewashed farm-house is very attractive. I called there for "a pot o' milk," as the guidwife put it, and while she fetched it, I noticed through the open door that the passage running through the house was not ceiled, but went right up into the rafters, past two floors.

The Wall runs to the north of the farm-house and Tarn, so that it has the steep grassy bank of the Tarn on its south side, and its own ditch on the north. The latter is almost as bold in its proportions here as at Gap.

The Vallum runs immediately south of the farm-house; and between it and the Wall, on the west side of the farm-house, is a large mound. This has been proved, by excavations made by Professor Haverfield and Mr. and Mrs. Hodgson, to be rubbish from a quarry, worked in Roman times, and still in use in mediæval times. Roman quarrymen's marks were found; also mediæval pottery.

CHAPTER XVII

BLEATARN TO GRINSDALE

From Bleatarn the road runs on the Wall for some distance. The undulating pastures are exchanged for a marshy common, covered with gorse, brambles and heather, and known as "White Moss." Here the Vallum is seen to have four mounds instead of only two. The ground was too marshy to allow of the digging of a ditch, so they raised two extra mounds to make a hollow between, the ditch being the objective. At Bleatarn, where they get on to rock again, the four mounds slide into two.

A Roman road crosses White Moss, and digging has shown that it was made by laying grey clay on the original surface, then a layer of coarse gravel, and fine gravel on the top of that.

At Wallhead the ditch is very clearly seen in the pasture-land. The road on to Walby runs between hedges, and beyond it merges into a grassy track, so much overgrown that it is evidently seldom trodden. Near Wallhead it was muddy and full of puddles from last night's rain.

It had turned out a very hot day, though there was enough wind to make a thunderous sound in the boughs of the still leafless ash-trees. (Why do bare ash-boughs beat all other trees for sound?) As I picked my way among the puddles, a little red squirrel came running along, holding his tail out very straight to keep it out of the mud. I stood like a rock, and he paid no heed to me, but stopped to drink out of a puddle at my feet before running up a tree.

When I reached the untrodden grassy track, I took off my shoes and stockings and walked bare-footed, the grass feeling deliciously cool and soft. Broom in full blossom lined the hedges, almost meeting overhead, and scattered its blossoms to make a yellow carpet for my feet.

It was the drowsiest of days. An old buff hen, asleep by a gate, awoke with a start when a stick snapped under me, but she only opened one eye, and then "dropped off" again. I saw no one else but an Irish terrier, very happy and busy, and out without leave, judging by his expression.

The grassy lane continues to Wallfoot, and here I had to come out on to the main road, for Brunstock Park lies across the route of Wall and Vallum. A section through both was made in 1894 by Mr. and Mrs. T. H. Hodgson; and the Vallum-ditch was { 193} first shown to be flat and not V-shaped. A flag-pavement was found near the Wall. The Roman Military Way was also discovered, with a double kerb in the centre, as for a two-horse chariot.

I passed Draw-dykes Castle, with its three busts on the roof, a very gaunt and unattractive building of red sandstone; and then I turned off on the right, where the road crosses Brunstock Beck, and followed the beck until I struck the line of the Wall once more. The beck forms the western boundary of Brunstock Park.

Some small boys with a fishmonger's truck were collecting firewood in the meadow by the beck, and thought everybody's quest must be the same. "How many sticks have you got, missus?" they cried as I passed.

The wall was easily traceable across the fields, and led me out on to the Scaleby road, across the road into more fields, and so to Tarraby.

Here I turned off to the left, to find the Near Boot Inn, and get some tea. I had met with a small adventure near Tarraby, on my way out in the morning. I had my lunch of sandwiches and biscuits in my pockets, and I was standing by a field-gate, studying my Ordnance-map, when suddenly there sprang upon me, out of the air apparently, five greyhound pups. Pups though they were, their forepaws reached to my shoulders. They were all over me in a moment; and, my { 194} hands being encumbered with the map, in saving that I never gave a thought to my pockets. Their noses led them straight there, and before I realized what they were about they had divided my lunch between them, and were coming back for more! They loved me so dearly after that that I could not get rid of them for the distance of several fields.

In consequence of this I had had nothing since breakfast but the "pot o' milk" at Bleatarn, so I sought the Inn at Tarraby very hopefully.

But the landlady was not nearly so sure that she wanted to give me some tea as I was that I wanted to have it. She did not actually refuse, but she did all she could to discourage me. She seemed to think that if she was the Near Boot , then I was certainly the "off leg"! She had a bad headache, and she hadn't any cake, nor any cream, nor much of anything apparently.

However, I took "a deal o' discouraging," and I sat on in the parlour and waited, for she had said: "Well, anyhow, I must attend to these men first."

As I looked at the pictures on the parlour walls, an idea suddenly dawned on me.

When the landlady returned, I remarked casually that I was very hungry because my lunch had been stolen by five greyhound pups, and of course I avoided showing the least tinge of resentment or annoyance (having felt none!) She did not say { 195} much, but I noticed a change in her manner, and when the tea did appear there were eggs and cake and pastry, to say nothing of cream, and home-made bread and butter and jam. And, to crown all, when I inquired for the headache, she said, "Do you know, it has gone!"

So I did full justice to her tea, while the men in the next room were telling each other what horses they had backed for the Derby, and how much they had lost.

Later, I learned that the landlord of the Near Boot was a noted breeder of greyhounds.

From Tarraby the path along the Wall leads through a wicket-gate into a pasture, with a cinder-path along the hedge, and in this hedge Wall-stones are clearly seen. Then we go between two close-clipped hedges of hawthorn and beech, with growing crops, or plantations of baby trees, on either side. This brings us out at Stanwix (Stane-wegges: a place upon the "stone way").

Here we are on the site of another Roman fort, occupying a commanding situation. The church and churchyard now indicate its position. The ground slopes down steeply on three sides, and the river Eden draws a semi-circle round it, making thus an additional protection on the east, south and west. No inscriptions have been found to tell us what troops the Romans placed here, and no remains of the Wall or the fort are to be seen. The interesting { 196} stone-figure of a Roman playing the bagpipes, which Hutton saw here used as a horseblock in the street, and which is now in the Tullie House Museum, Carlisle, was seen by a writer of 1794 "upon a door at Stanwix," and his illustration shows the bagpipes much more clearly than the stone does now.

Stanwix is now practically a suburb of Carlisle. Here I saw a funny sight. A baby in petticoats, certainly not so much as two years old, was sitting on his father's knee on a doorstep. An old country-woman was passing, lame in one leg, and with a very irregular gait. The baby looked at her, and began to call out: "Left ... left ... left ..." at regular intervals; and the old woman laughed heartily at being thus drilled, pulled herself up, and walked (as I fancied) rather less lame in consequence.

The Wall can be traced again near the Eden. I went down the road towards the famous Eden Bridge, and through the iron gate on the right, which is almost on the Vallum. This brought me into what seems to be the playground of Carlisle, along the banks of the river,—a playground so spacious that though half the city seemed to have come out to play this lovely evening, there still seemed any amount of room. The turf was very fresh and green and beautiful on the undulating slopes which run down to the river. Two stone posts on the bank above Hyssop Holme Well have { 197} been placed to mark the site of the Wall and its ditch in this region, but there is nothing to show exactly where it crossed the Eden.

In order to trace its farther course as closely as possible, I referred the next morning to the 6-inch Ordnance-map in the Tullie House Museum. This shows how the Wall, after crossing the river, passed to the north of the Castle Hill, while the Vallum curved round to the south of it. Guided by the map, I followed the Wall as closely as I could, picking up traces here and there.

Starting from in front of the Castle, I went down Annetwell Street and Bridge Street, turning off by Bridge Lane on the right to Willowholme, where there is a disused mill. Leaving the mill on the right, I crossed a footpath, and then a footbridge over a stream, and bore round to the left, following this diminutive tributary of the Eden. The path soon crosses under the railway, and now we are again on the site of the Wall!

I found this a very unfrequented route, and the sluggish, gnat-beset little stream was not very attractive; but I was out to follow the Wall wherever it led me, no matter where. To-day it led me past the sewage-works, to a footpath by the Eden. The old disused bone-mill of Rattlingstones, with its high chimney and its still busy mill-race, was on my left. I stopped to look at the frothy water. What was that it was toying with, tossing backwards { 198} and forwards, hiding and then revealing? I could hardly believe my eyes. It was a mattress , a nice large double-bed mattress, in excellent condition! Now how did it get there? Mattresses are not the sort of thing one leaves about by mistake, or drops when one is out for a walk. I was obliged to go on without solving the problem.

Under the wide stone railway-bridge I passed next, and so came to the engine-sheds mentioned by Dr. Bruce. I crossed a footbridge, with steam from the engine-sheds puffing all round me, and so came to a stile which brought me out into the open fields which lie above the Eden—and here once more is Wall!

The left bank of the river is very high and precipitous, while the right bank is a gentle slope. I had no difficulty in finding the site of the Wall in these fields, nor in walking along it; and the Vallum runs parallel, a short distance to the south.

Now the walk is really beautiful, all the way to Grinsdale. Trees grow in profusion on the steep river bank, and the blue river below gleams up through their branches.

On the opposite bank a ploughman was cheering on his horses, and fishers were spreading out their nets to dry.

At a bend in the stream, Grinsdale came into view, and soon the path entered a delicious fir-plantation, with the resinous smell brought out by { 199} the hot sun. Two men carrying huge sacks of firewood reminded me again of the coal-strike.

Just about here the Vallum and the Wall begin to diverge, the Wall following the river to Grinsdale, and the Vallum striking straight across the lower ground through Millbeck to Kirkandrews.

The railway-line to Silloth comes very close to the river here; in fact, the two have been running more or less alongside all the way from Rattlingstones, but I never knew a river so clever in hiding itself as the Eden. A traveller by train to Silloth would not guess he was quite close to a large river, so shyly does it conceal itself behind its steep southern bank.

After flowing in a northerly direction towards Grinsdale, it makes a sharp right-angled turn just at the village, and flows eastward past the church.

Grinsdale is a very pretty village, standing high up on this loop of the Eden, with the gardens of the houses sloping steeply down to the water. It seemed half asleep as I reached it. I came out into the road by a farm-house, making a mental note for future use of the sign it displayed: "Aerated Waters." I met no one in the village street but a farmer in his shirt-sleeves, who took his pipe out of his mouth to ejaculate, "Hot!" I took the opportunity before he put it in again to ask about the Roman Wall. He said he had heard there was a bit standing near the church, but he had never { 200} seen it. So I turned off to the right, into fields which led to the church, following the bend of the river.

It seemed hotter and quieter than ever. A swan was standing asleep on one leg on the gravelly flat by the water's edge. In the churchyard the rooks were cawing drowsily, and dropped dead branches on me as I passed. It is a tiny church, with a tiny tower, all rough cast, and it stands on the very brink of the steep river bank. It is protected on the river-side by a strong stone wall into which Wall-stones have been built. A breakwater, also containing Wall-stones, runs down into the river, to protect the church wall. But as for Wall itself, I saw I was quite off the track.

Still, I was not sorry to sit and rest for a while in the cool of the churchyard.

On the opposite bank of the river, where it had encroached on the land, men were busy sinking piles—long, long rows of them—and bringing up loads of brushwood to build up the bank, and prevent further inroads.

Seeing them working so hard in the sun made me feel quite thirsty, and, remembering the sign I had seen at the farm, I turned back to find it. Such a comely farmer's wife answered my knock that I ventured to ask for tea instead of aerated water. She said: "Yes, if ye can wait a bit till I have made up the butter." Of course I could wait, so I went { 201} off to explore the village a little more. A pleasant-faced elderly woman was driving a herd of cows out of a gate, so I asked my eternal question about the Wall. She said: "If ye want to know aught aboot Grinsdel, go to that hoose there," pointing with her finger. " He'll tell ye; I'm a newcomer."

Just then "he" came into his front garden, so she hailed him, and passed me on. He told me where to pick up the line of the Wall again, and then he invited me in, to look at some old books etc. that he had, apologizing for "the litter" (which was invisible to me) because the housekeeper was away, and he and his brother were "doing for" themselves. He showed me an old Malacca cane, such as Joey Bagstock must have carried, with an ivory handle and a silver ring. It was inscribed: "David Stagg, 1701," and its pointed iron end looked as if David had been a heavy man, and had leant heavily upon it. Finally he left me in his parlour, happily absorbed in Hutchinson's History of Cumberland (1794), and with his assurance that I should be "well oot o' the road there" for as long as I pleased. So if there is a Sherlock Holmes amongst my readers, when he notices hereafter the date 1794, he may possibly guess whence the facts that go with it were obtained.

The butter was on the very point of coming out of the churn when I reappeared at the farm. "Come and look at it!" cried the guidwife; "it's just { 202} beautiful." And she picked up a jug of water and poured it into the churn. But, alas! she had left the cork out, and the water was splashing all round us on the stone floor of the dairy. I flew into the kitchen, where I had noticed the cork, and returned in triumph with it, to be met with an approving, "Why, ye'll mak' a farmer's wife yet!"

Then I had to "taste" the butter, to see if it was salt enough; and finally to taste it in a more satisfactory way, in the form of bread and butter with my tea.

CHAPTER XVIII

GRINSDALE TO DRUMBURGH

To follow the Wall to Kirkandrews, I had to cross the village street, and pass through a farm-yard gate beside a letter-box. This brought me out into meadows. Such a beautiful golden meadow was the first which came, with dark-grey guinea-fowls making a foil to the buttercups, and giant trees here and there. In the shade of one large chestnut-tree, a handsome lad was shearing sheep. I drew near to watch, and the clip, clip of his shears, together with the bleating of the waiting sheep, prevented his hearing me, so I waited till one sheep was quite finished before venturing to move or make a sound. Then I spoke, and he jumped. "How quiet they are while they are being shorn!" "Yes," said he, with a smile. "You never hear the sheep saying anything then; they say it all before. I think they are glad to get rid of it; it weighs about nine or ten pounds." As I looked at the snowy whiteness of the inside of the fleece, I thought how much we town-dwellers miss in the imagery of the Bible which must come home { 204} with great force to a pastoral people, such as the Jews themselves were. "White as wool" and "As a sheep before her shearers is dumb."

I found only faint traces of the Wall here and there on the way to Kirkandrews, in the pasture-land, and as a mound running through a young cornfield. In 1794 it was "very visible." The churchyard at Kirkandrews is a mass of stones, and Dr. Bruce thought a mile-castle stood there. There has been no church for many years. In the eighteenth century the burial service was still read under the ruins of the old chancel arch, but the parish has been joined to Beaumont since 1692.

The Vallum and the Wall come together again at Kirkandrews, but they meet only to part, for the Wall climbs to Beaumont, clinging for a little longer to the high bank of the Eden, and the Vallum makes a straight course for Burgh-by-sands (usually called just "Bruff").

Near Kirkandrews was found the interesting stone described by Dr. Bruce—an altar, cut down for building purposes, commemorating the achievements of the sixth legion, "prosperously performed beyond the Wall" ( ob res trans Vallum prospere gestas ). Lord Lonsdale had it taken away.

The Wall continues its course not far from the road leading to Beaumont, on the right. The Wall-ditch is seen again where the Wall crosses the Beaumont Beck. The church at Beaumont is right { 205} on the line of the Wall, and is partly built of Roman stones; it may be on the site of another mile-castle.

A farm-yard gate on the right of the church leads to a lane, which runs actually on the Wall. This merges into a grassy track, evidently seldom used, and getting gradually more impassable. Finally I found myself still on the Wall, but creeping on hands and knees through a tunnel of thick hawthorn growth, where it was impossible to stand upright. The farmer had not considered the convenience of pilgrims of the Wall, for I found myself obliged to squeeze through barbed wire fences, and through masses of dead boughs and brambles which blocked my way. However, as every pilgrim knows, difficulties, seen rightly, are only things to be overcome, and presently the obstructions ceased to appear, and the Wall sloped gradually and peacefully down to the main road, taking me across the Powburgh Beck, and finally out into the road quite close to Burgh Church.

Burgh was "the longest village in Cumberland," according to Hutton. It is the site of one of the forts along the Wall, the exact position of which has only recently been ascertained.

The church is very solidly built, mainly of stones from the Wall and fort; it has a square tower, the walls of which are 7 feet thick. I fetched the key from the Vicarage, a modern brick building, { 206} and explored it by myself. It has been classed as a "fortified church," and it is thought that the iron door which separates the tower from the rest of the building was to enable it to stand a short siege if necessary. The view from the top of the tower is well worth seeing, especially away to the north, across the Burgh Marsh, to the Eden, winding through the sands, and with the hills of Dumfriesshire beyond.

The pretty Old Vicarage, next the church, is a long, low whitewashed house with very small windows. There are indications that a door in its west wall once opened into the churchyard. The date on the cottage next door, which looks about the same age, is 1672.

Thirty years ago, when the new Vicarage was built, this one was sold for £150. It has just been sold again, and put into repair, and a rent of £50 is being asked for it. The old and new Vicarages and the cottage between are the very first houses in the long village street. As I walked westward I noticed many clay houses. They have very thick walls, as much as 4 feet thick, and are usually whitewashed over the clay, but sometimes great patches of brownish-grey clay interrupt the white surface. Stone window-jambs, lintels and door-posts are used, and the roofs are thatched, except where corrugated iron has, alas! replaced the original thatch.

A tall, thin old man, driving some cows, passed me while I was looking at one of these houses, and remarked that they were very warm and comfortable to live in. I asked him about the Roman Wall, and he said folks did not trouble about it much, but he could show me a bit of it, if I would wait till he had got the cows in. So I walked alongside till we came to his house, which was of clay, as I had guessed it would be. Outside there was a pump, and a stone trough whose edges were scalloped in exactly the same way as the Roman stone troughs at Borcovicium and elsewhere. I asked him why it was scalloped, and he replied that they always sharpened their tools on it, thus confirming the usual theory.

He then took me to Hungerhill Lane, a turning off the north side of the main street, and there, not many paces along, he showed me the Wall, crossing the lane at right-angles, the stones level with the ground. It was nearly three yards wide, and very clearly discernible right across the lane; by far the best piece I have seen in any road since I started. He told me he had lifted a good many stones in his time, from a field farther west, but that they "perished" when uncovered—which last I found difficult to believe.

Walking to Bleatarn from Carlisle, I had come across a young ex-service man who hailed from Burgh. He was very obliging in giving me such { 208} archæological information as he possessed, but it was not exact enough to be of much use.

Old Miss Sally ——, at Burgh, so he said, had a Roman stone in her garden with a terrible far-back date; anyhow, it was A.D. something ! It was covered with moss, and she had got him to clean it. The church at Burgh was built of Roman stones, and he had been to the top many a time; it looked a terrible long way down. When he was a boy it was said there was treasure hidden under King Edward the First's Monument, and a terrible big crowd had collected, with flags flying, and ever such a to-do, wanting to dig it up, but they were not allowed.

He told me he had joined up at once in 1914, going straight off from Carlisle, without ever returning home to say good-bye to his father and mother. He just left his bicycle with his sister, and went off, not knowing he would be gone four and a half years! No doubt there were many such. He only had two "leaves" home all the time.

However, he came through all right; some pretty hot times, but he came through. And he saw some terrible nice places in Italy on the way home from Salonika.

He was such a cheery fellow that I was "terrible glad" to have come across him, although I did not feel much wiser when our ways parted.

The Vallum is clearly seen in Burgh, running { 209} through pasture-land to the north of the road. The Wall goes close behind West-end farm-house, and then— via Watch Hill—to Dykesfield, which may be recognized by its well-kept lawns, on one of which stands a Roman altar. Rhododendrons were in full flower in the garden, and dark yew trees round them made their rich colour look even richer. Here the Vallum is thought to end, but the Wall goes straight on down to the level of the marsh. It cannot be traced again between this point and Drumburgh, two and a half miles farther on.

It seems a very long two and a half miles across the marsh on a hot day, for it is a perfectly straight and level road, unsheltered by a single tree. The railway between Carlisle and Port Carlisle runs alongside, having succeeded the canal. Signs of the canal can be seen at intervals, where lock-gates are placed to hold up the streams that run into the Eden through the marsh. The marsh is a grazing-ground for many sheep and cattle.

To the north of Burgh can be seen the monument erected to mark the spot where King Edward I. died in his tent on 7th July 1307. He was encamped there with a large army, awaiting a favourable opportunity to cross the Sol way and enter Scotland. Tradition says that he had been warned in a dream that he would die at Burgh, so he had purposely avoided coming through a place of that name in { 210} Yorkshire. On arriving here, he asked an old woman what the place was called, and heard to his surprise the fateful name. A monument was first placed here in 1685, by the Duke of Norfolk, on the site of the heap of stones that had marked the spot; but after a hundred years it began to lean to the west, and in 1795 it fell. So the Earl of Lonsdale rebuilt it on a much larger base in 1803.

The village of Boustead Hill is seen half-way across the marsh, to the south of the road—a mere sprinkling of houses on a grassy knoll.

I passed no one on these 2½ miles but a shepherd, and a young couple with a motor-bicycle and trailer. They were seated on the top of the grassy dyke; she was winding wool, and he was holding the skein. As I passed, I said: "It's a gran' day," in the approved style of the country, and they cordially assented.

Near Drumburgh Station there is a house where I was told a horse and cart could be hired, so I called to engage it for my return journey, as trains are few and far between. But, alas! "he" was out, "leading peat," till the evening, and then was engaged to fetch some one from "Port," for the eight o'clock train. However "she" was quite willing to give me some tea. She had had her own long ago, at three o'clock (for dinner was always at 11.30), so the kettle was not boiling but soon would. I was invited into the kitchen, where "oor Tho'" { 211} as he called himself, stopped playing with his dolls to help his mother fetch sticks, and to wake the dying embers of the kitchen fire. "Oor Tho'" was five, and "oor Maggie," who returned from school shortly, was a year or so older. Although their ages were reversed, they made me think very much of the two Tullivers, not only because of the similarity of the names.

Drumburgh village is entered through a white gate across the road, at the end of the marsh. Just inside the gate, on the left, is Drumburgh Castle, an old fortified manor-house now used as a farm-house. John Leland, in his famous Itinerary , writes thus of it in 1539:

"At Drumburgh the Lord Dacre's father builded upon old ruines a pretty pyle for defence of the country. The stones of the Pict Wall were pulled down to build it."

"Drumburgh ys in ye mydde way betwixt Bolness and Burgh. The stones of the Picts Wall were pulled down to build Drumburgh, for the Wall is very nere it."

Above the main entrance, a coat-of-arms and the { 212} initials "T.D.," for Thomas Dacre, are seen, carved in stone; and two stone griffins with outspread wings are perched high up on a level with the chimneys. There is a fine flight of steps up to the main door, which is a heavy oak door studded thickly with nails. The steps and balustrade, when I saw them, were coated with red ochre, such as is used for marking sheep. They told me this was done to preserve the stone, and prevent moss from growing on it. The ochre is mixed with buttermilk, and then it does not wash off, and the steps are never slippery for walking on.

But, oh, the vandalism of it! Even the Roman altar which stands at the top of the steps had been given its coat of brick-red! Is it worth preserving the stones at such a cost? I could not help picturing to myself a brick-red Roman Wall, running along the tops of the crags! Ugh!

The present occupiers are not responsible, for they have merely carried on the tradition of their predecessors, and the "doorstep" custom of the neighbourhood.

I called at a less pretentious entrance, which was evidently mostly used, and asked for permission to see inside the Castle. The farmer's wife was busy at the time, but she kindly promised to show me round on my return journey from Bowness.

Its chief beauty is its panelled room, the principal room of the house, on the first floor, with windows looking north and south, across the village street in front, and over the garden behind. The walls are completely covered with beautiful oak panelling, the panels being about a foot square. In this room I was amused to see a reproduction of a picture of my own, which had found its way to this remote spot, via "Bibby's Annual."

We went up on to the roof to see the view, which is very fine. Battlements still protect it at the western end. On the way up we passed over a floor with holes in it, and my guide begged me to be careful. Blackness of darkness was visible through the holes, and she told me I was looking into a sealed room. Presently she showed me where the door leading into it had been covered up and whitewashed over; and when I looked up later at the front of the house, I saw the window had been filled in with two large blocks of stone and cemented over. All this seemed very mysterious, but the mistress of the house treated it in a perfectly matter-of-fact way. "I'm very glad," said she; "there's a deal to keep clean as it is; no doubt they thought so too, whoever did it. But the servant-girls hear stories in the village, and sometimes they won't stop."

She unbolted the heavy oak door to let me out. That entrance is never used, so the wide hall of the { 214} manor-house is now merely a bare whitewashed store-room, hung with hams, and decorated with bacon.

In an illustrated edition of Sir Walter Scott's Redgauntlet , published in 1832, a picture of Drumburgh Castle is given, as the "Fairladies" of the tale.

Drumburgh is the site of a small fort on the Wall, some remains of which were found in 1899. The ditch behind the Castle is not the Wall-ditch.

CHAPTER XIX

DRUMBURGH TO BOWNESS

From Drumburgh Castle I continued my way through the village, where there are many clay houses. Nothing of the Wall is to be seen until after a sharp double turn in the road. Here, after the second turn, I saw the Wall-ditch plainly in a meadow to the south of the road; this was just after passing the schools, where a young master was drilling the boys and girls with a great assumption of sternness. The Wall can be traced at intervals in the fields to the south, following pretty closely the line of the road as far as Port Carlisle.

Nearing Glasson, both Wall and road turn towards the sea. At the cross-roads to the north of Glasson, the tall chimneys of the Dornock works in Dumfriesshire are seen across the Solway, straight ahead along the road we are travelling. Soon after this, the road runs along close to the sea, with only a grassy stretch between, and then Port Carlisle comes into view. The core of the Wall is to be seen occasionally on the left. Three farms stand { 216} here, facing the sea—Lowtown, Westfield and Kirkland.

Port Carlisle was known as Fisher's Cross before the canal to Carlisle was opened in 1823. The attempt to make it the port of Carlisle was a failure, owing to the tendency of the harbour to get silted up with sand and mud. In 1854 the canal was filled up as far as Drumburgh, and a railway made on its site. Docks were constructed at Silloth, and the railway continued to that point.

Until recently travellers to Port Carlisle had to continue their journey from Drumburgh in a "horse-dandy," drawn along the dry bed of the canal. Now the railway goes all the way; and one of the dandies, painted Indian red, occupies a distinguished position as an "antiquity" opposite the platform of the railway station, while the other serves in the lowlier capacity of a hen-house close by.

Port Carlisle consists of a single street of comfortable-looking stone houses facing the sea. A well-kept bowling-green and tennis-courts near the station provide amusement for the railway servants in the long intervals between trains. It was all interval when I was there, for this part of the line was closed during the coal-strike.

The jetty where the boats used to unload is now in a ruinous condition. The sea has broken through it, so at high tide the far end is a grass-grown island where visitors have been cut off from escape by the { 217} water. I looked for the Packet Hotel where the fragment of an altar, inscribed "MATRIBVS SVIS," is built in over the door, and I found it was no longer an Inn, but a farm-house, the last house in the long street, just where the coast-line begins to bend round towards Bowness.

I had seen no trace of the Wall since passing Kirkland, but I knew I ought to be able to pick it up here, so I walked round behind the ex-hotel, and began to look about. A girl was sitting sewing in the doorway of a cottage, and I asked if she could help me. "Oh yes," she said; "I'll fetch my father." An old man appeared, with a pot of green paint in one hand and a paint-brush in the other.

Then, with a dramatic wave of the paint-brush, "The Roman Wall passed by this very doorstep." He gave me full instructions as to how to find it farther on:

"Follow along the road to Bo'ness till you come to a gooter across the road, then turn to the left up a grassing-field, and go on till you come to an elbow. Turn to the right, and you come to a high lift; over that lift you'll find the Wall."

I obeyed these instructions as closely as I could, but I made the mistake of following a closed gutter instead of an open one, and this involved me in several unexpected difficulties. I reached the { 218} Wall-line sooner than my guide had intended, and the farmers about here seem to tax their ingenuity to make it as difficult as possible to follow that line. I crept under barbed wire into a "grassing" field and safely reached the hedge. Here were undoubted signs of Wall-core. I followed it to the hedge of the next field, and there I stopped. The hedge seemed quite impregnable, and there was no gate; all the hedges were of the thickest, and even if I could have made a hole, it would have been contrary to my code. I turned back to see if I could find an opening into the field on my left. A large ash-tree grew in the hedge, and without much trouble I climbed into its lower boughs, and could then make a drop of 6 feet into the next field. But again I was done! There was a gate on the west, it is true, but it was locked, and so thickly interlaced with thorn-bushes that I could not climb it. There was nothing for it but to reclimb my ash-tree, and have another look at my first hedge. I now saw that the end of a long ladder was laid flat on the top of this hedge, and rested on a gate-post in the field of my desire. Great masses of thorn-bush were heaped up under the ladder, which had evidently been thrown across as an additional barrier. Here was an opportunity to turn an enemy into a friend! I pulled myself up on to the ladder, walked from rung to rung over the thorn-bushes, and jumped off at the end, feeling that I had scored { 219} one over the farmer, for I had circumvented him without damaging his property. The next hedge was of thorn-trees growing on the ground, and there was just one small hole, between two trunks, big enough for me to creep through. And then I saw a fine piece of Wall—only the core, but several feet high, and in very good condition. A gateway had been cut right through it, and in the section the formation and the Roman mortar could be readily examined. The Wall-ditch was just discernible on its north side.

William Hutton says of this part of the Wall: "One mile prior to the extremity of our journey and at the distance of one inclosure on our left, appears in majesty, for the last time, Severus's Wall, being five or six hundred yards long, and three feet high, but, as in the mountains, all confusion. A fence grows upon it * * * In two places it is six feet high, eight broad, and three thick; but has no facing-stones." Dr. Bruce says that gunpowder was used in bringing it down.

It was after this that I came to the "elbow." The Wall-ditch was to be seen from the elbow running through the pasture to the next hedge. I followed, scrambling down the steep bank of a burn, and up the other side amid gorse and hawthorn, into a cart-track, with the Wall now on my right. The burn now served as the Wall-ditch.

I was quite near to the houses of Bowness by this { 220} time, and a gate on my left across the meadow brought me into a narrow lane, and thus into the road, not far from the church.

In the churchyard I saw a man in light tweeds carrying a bucket of water. He asked me courteously if I would like to have the key of the church, and I found I was addressing the Rector. Except for a very beautiful Norman font, there is nothing remarkable about the church.

From the main street I made my way through a little iron gate opposite the "King's Arms," down a steep grassy slope, and on to the shore by means of a rickety, rusty iron ladder, riveted by one leg to a rock. The view was lovely across the sands. On my left, crossing the Solway, was the Annan Railway Bridge, which had just been condemned as unsafe, and Criffel showed in a violet haze beyond it.

I thought from the sands I could best distinguish the probable site of the Roman fort, and I believe that I did succeed in identifying the western rampart, and the south-west and north-west angles.

Bowness is a quiet little place, standing high up above the Solway, with steep cobbled streets and many clay houses, "whose walls," said an old inhabitant to me, "are as thick as my stick is long." As seen from the ridge above the road to the west of the village, eight strips of colour, gradually receding, make up my impression of the view. { 221} First a strip of white road, then a strip of green grass; beyond that, a strip of yellow gorse; behind the gorse, a strip of marshland, pink with sea-thrift; then a strip of yellow dry sand, then a strip of brown wet sand; beyond that the blue water of the Solway, and, last of all, the blue-grey distance of Scotland.

There were fishing-smacks on the Solway, and there were fishermen fishing with their "half-nets" for salmon and trout.

Camden says of this part: "I marvailed at first, why they built here so great fortifications, considering that for eight miles or thereabout, there lieth opposite a very great frith and arme of the sea; but now I understand that every ebbe the water is so low, that the Borderers and beast-stealers may easily wade over." And he records how, in 1216, they came, and having stayed too long were swept away by the tide. His quaint words (or rather, Dr. Philemon Holland's quaint translation of them) are worth quoting:

"For Eden, that notable river, * * * powreth forth into a mighty masse of water, having not yet forgotten what adoe it had to pass away, struggling and wrestling as it did, among the carcasses of freebutters, lying dead in it on heapes, in the yeer of salvation, 1216, when it swallowed them up, loaden with booties out of England, and so buried that rabble of robbers under his waves."

{ 222} I searched about for the end of the Wall, where it was supposed to run northwards into the water, and was just about to give it up in despair, when I saw an old lady in a black sunbonnet leaning over the gate of a pretty little cottage. I got into conversation with her, and then of her own accord she told me that the Roman Wall ended in her garden, "behind that apple-tree." She spoke of the gentlemen who had come to investigate, and how they had followed it down from her garden to the shore, by the old schoolhouse, which is now used by the fishermen for keeping their nets. She added: "There's not many that sets any store by the Roman Wall here—only me."

So here I was, having actually arrived at my goal, at the end of my walk of 73½ miles—not as the crow flies, but as the Wall runs. I had made it probably twice as far, by digressions and excursions. For the present I felt I had had enough walking; I wanted to indulge in a lift; so I began to inquire for a pony and trap to take me back to Drumburgh Castle. I soon found one at an innocent-looking house in the village street, which turned out to be a farm-house, with a yard and byres at the back. The farmer's daughter, who drove me, asked me why I did not spend the night at Bowness. I told her that I had engaged a room at Carlisle because I could not be sure of getting a bed at Bowness; and I related my experiences on { 223} the way to Carlisle. "Oh," she cried, "Bo'nes people isn't like that ! They'd no see you bet. Why, I'd give up my own bed to any one rather than let them go without. Folks say I'll be took in some day, but I don't mind."

As we drove down the village street, she pointed out to me the Roman altar, mentioned by Bruce, built into an outhouse near the King's Arms. It is dedicated to Jupiter, for the welfare of the Emperors Gallus and Volusian, so it dates from about 251 A.D.

After visiting Drumburgh Castle, I went by train to Kirkandrews. A stout lady in the train asked me if I had been to Bowness. "Ah!" she said, "I know it well; I've been to many a funeral there. They bury them there from Glasson, and from Drumburgh, and I think from Kirkbride. It's a nice place, Bo'nes, to be buried." I inquired what were the special advantages. "Well, well, I can't exactly say, but it's a nice place, is Bo'nes; I'd as lief be buried there myself. My husband's father, he was a canal man, lived for twenty years on a houseboat on the canal; and he's buried at Bo'nes."

From Kirkandrews I walked back to Carlisle, first through Grinsdale, and then along the track of the Wall above the Eden. It was such a lovely evening! My shadow was cast by the lowering sun half across the blue waters of the Eden, and { 224} Carlisle Castle and Cathedral appeared at intervals over the stone railway bridge, glowing in the warm light. As I neared Carlisle, the meadows were alive with children of all ages, enjoying the beautiful close of a hot day. Miners on strike were racing their whippets; small boys with hatchets were chopping off dead boughs for firewood on the steep tree-covered river banks; children were bathing and paddling from the rocks by the engine-house. A sweet smell of may was in the air. And I had a satisfied sense of "something accomplished, something done." The week's walk had been delightful, and my acquaintance with the Wall had been much extended and deepened; and yet I was not wholly sorry to return to civilized habits, and to unstrap my haversack from my shoulders for the last time.

The following afternoon I left Carlisle to spend a day or two with friends in Northumberland, picking up my suit-case in Newcastle.

When I went up to dress for dinner that evening, I found to my horror that the maid had unpacked my tramp's luggage, and distributed it about the room, while the suit-case was still locked and the key in my pocket!

And there were my poor, pathetic little bedroom-slippers, which I had had no chance of discarding { 225} since I wore through their soles on the crags; there they were, spread out in such incongruous surroundings!

I sat down, and laughed and laughed and laughed. I could do nothing else. And then I gathered everything together and restored it to the haversack, strapping it up firmly, and consigning it to oblivion until such time as I could sort it out properly, ready for my next tramp.

CHAPTER XX

VINDOLANDA, CORSTOPITUM, BEWCASTLE

There are a few places not within the line of a direct walk along the Wall from sea to sea which yet form part of our subject, because they have close associations with the Wall.

The most important of these is actually one of the forts per lineam Valli , though it lies a mile to the south of the Wall. This is called Vindolana on the Notitia list, but a recently discovered altar shows the correct spelling of the name to have been VINDOLANDA.

The fort of Vindolanda is at Chesterholm, about a mile south from Hotbank on the Wall. To reach it, we can take a turning on the south side of Wade's Road, near Bradley Hall, keeping to the left, or we can cut across the fields from Highshield farm-house.

The green platform of the fort stands out very conspicuously, and will be easily recognized by any one who is getting to know what to look for. It rises up immediately to the west of the little hamlet { 227} of Chesterholm, half buried in its nest of trees; and the heathery hill of Barcombe shelters both from the east winds.

If we approach the fort by the road, it brings us past a Roman milestone, the only one still standing in its original position on the Stanegate, which runs east and west here. The milestone stands about 5 feet above the ground and is about 6 feet in circumference.

The walls, gateways and ditches can be readily made out, also the hypocaustal pillars of a large building to the west of the fort. I sat on the outer wall of the fort to make a sketch of Chesterholm in the evening light, with heathery Barcombe beyond, and the Long Stone standing up against the sky. No one knows the age of the Long Stone. I was up there one day when two tourists passed. They saw the date "1784" cut on its base by an earlier tourist. "Oh, that's the date it was set up," said they, and hurried on. The top has been broken off, and joined with iron bands cemented in; and there is a similar join at the base. It stands between two large stones which keep it in place, and these look in the distance like a pedestal for the column.

There is a British camp near the Long Stone, and also a Roman quarry, where the famous { 228} "Thorngrafton Find" of Roman coins was made. There are no coins later than Hadrian's in the collection, which tends to confirm the already well-established fact that Hadrian, and no later Emperor, built the Wall.

A glorious view is to be had from Barcombe of the "mural ridge," all the way from Sewingshields to the Nine Nicks.

In the valley of Chesterholm there is a cottage built of Roman stones, where some beautiful coping-stones and other sculptured stones are preserved, built into a covered passage, approached by slippery stone steps.

To the north of the milestone is a large artificial mound, possibly the burial-place of a British chief. One day, when I was painting the milestone, there were young black cattle feeding on this mound, quite a number of them. Suddenly I heard a sound of trampling hoofs above me, and down they came, the whole crowd, at full speed. I sat tight, hoping they would not upset me, for a thorn-tree hid me where I sat. However, the tide did not flow quite in my direction, and they gathered round the milestone, and did nothing worse than obstruct my view.

THE ROMAN MILE-STONE ON THE STANEGATE, NEAR VINDOLANDA,
WITH BARCOMBE, RISING BEHIND THE TREES

A boy on a bicycle came by, and stopped to look at the stone, chattering away to me while I worked:

"What age is the old thing? About 80 A.D.? Well, he has stuck it out! Wonder how much of him there is underground. As much again, I suppose. I say, did you have difficulty in getting water-colour paper during the War? No? Well, lucky you didn't! Chaps in the Government office I worked in, they'd get out a half-crown sheet of Whatman when they wanted a table-cloth for tea! Lot of that sort of thing done. Shame, I call it. Flies are a nuisance here; don't you find them so? No? Well, I do. Good morning."

I had heard from various sources that I must not miss seeing the Roman town of Corstopitum at Corbridge; but on my first attempt, when I motored with friends to the little town on the Cor Burn, we only succeeded in finding a field-gate with a notice up, "Excavations closed." So obediently we went away, only to be told afterwards how foolish we had been to pay any regard to the notice, for if we had inquired at the farm, we could have got the key of the little Museum-shed, and have seen everything. But how were we to know that? I was not able to go again until I most happily fell in with the Pilgrimage of the Archæological Societies, and was allowed to join it.

Corstopitum is 2½ miles south of the Roman Wall, { 230} and on the line of the Stanegate, of which its chief street forms a part. Dere Street crossed the river here by a bridge of ten piers, and entered this site. It seems that the importance of Corstopitum dates from the time of Agricola, but was greatly increased after the building of the Antonine Wall, 140 A.D., and its most prosperous times were in that period. It probably depended for its protection chiefly on the Wall and the Wall forts, being itself only a great military store, covering 30 acres, of which 20 have been excavated.

When I visited the excavations they had been neglected for years owing to the war, and ragwort and thistles had done their best to blot them out again. I could not help thinking of these beautiful lines by Maude Egerton King:

"Not bands, nor wheels, nor belching towers
Can break, or yoke,
Or blind with smoke
The vital powers,
So swift to spread their cloak
Of grassy forgiveness and sweet-scented stars
Over earth's man-made scars."

But on this particular occasion one wished that nature had not been quite so busy in seeking to heal the "scars" made by the excavators!

The granaries are magnificent buildings, strongly buttressed to resist the pressure of the heavy stone roofs, with floors raised on sleeper walls, and a ventilation space below, to keep the corn both dry { 231} and cool. Window-openings between the buttresses admitted air under the floors. In one window there is a stone mullion, which is probably the only Roman mullion now to be seen. The original western granary was evidently built before the eastern. There are several levels of occupation in Corstopitum, and the western granary has two floors, two walls, two sets of drainage, one above the other, whereas the eastern granary has only one of each. The heavy stone blocks of which they are built are rusticated—inner surfaces as well as outer.

Beyond the granaries are a public fountain and watering-trough. Other buildings found prove that Corstopitum was an industrial centre of some importance.

Two very valuable hoards of gold coins have been found, one in 1908 and the other in 1911. The coins of the later find were the earlier and more valuable, ranging from Nero to Antoninus Pius, Hadrian's successor. They have all been sent to the British Museum.

The famous "Corbridge Lion" was found in a tank in what was probably the garden of a house in the settlement.

Amongst the interesting inscribed stones found here is a tombstone in memory of Barathes of Palmyra (in the Arabian desert), who was a standard-bearer in the Roman army, and died at the age of { 232} sixty-eight. A much finer tombstone, which he dedicated to his wife, Regina, who only lived to be thirty, is to be seen in the South Shields Museum, having been found in that neighbourhood.

The excavations at Corstopitum were carried out, under the superintendence of Mr. R. H. Forster, F.S.A., chiefly during the long vacations, when Professor Haverfield and Dr. H. H. E. Craster were able to be much on the spot, and Oxford undergraduates could get an insight into the methods of "reading the soil" employed by archæologists in Britain.

Hexham is not a Roman site, but there are many traces of the Roman occupation in the Abbey.

The Saxon crypt, almost the only remaining part of the original church built by Bishop Wilfrid in 674, is entirely constructed of Roman stones. The workmen who built it have attached no importance whatever to the beauty of the mouldings, nor to the interest of the inscriptions. They have simply used them as a "key" for the plaster with which walls and ceiling were covered.

A very beautiful olive-leaf-and-berry moulding occurs frequently; there are also a cable pattern, an elaborate fig-leaf design from a door-jamb, and a deeply fluted column, all built up into the walls of the crypt.

Two Roman inscriptions occur: one is on a stone used as a flat roof-slab, and the other has had a semi-circle cut out of it to form the head of a door-way.

The flat roof-slab contained the names of Severus and his two sons, but the name of Geta has been erased as usual, by order of the brother who murdered him.

The most interesting Roman stone at Hexham is a tombstone with a vigorous carving of a Roman soldier on horseback, carrying the standard, and treading on his prostrate enemy.

"To the gods, the shades. Flavinus, a soldier of the cavalry regiment of Petriana, standard-bearer of the troop of Candidus, being twenty-five years of age, and having served seven years in the army, is here laid."

Then there is an altar dedicated to Apollo Maponus by Terentius Firmus, a native of Siena, and prefect of the camps of the Sixth Legion.

Dr. Bruce was of opinion that the Roman stones in the Abbey were brought from Corstopitum—more especially because, in the bed of the river near Hexham, Roman stones abandoned in transit have been found.

Gilsland, with its green daisy-starred mounds, its streams and glades and waterfalls, its Stepping-stones, and Popping-stone, and Kissing-bush, and generally romantic associations, is the greatest possible contrast to the wild fells which we have so lately left, but which can still be seen along the eastern horizon.

The very name of Gilsland speaks of softness, and verdure, and tinkling streams.

Here it was, so says history, that Sir Walter Scott wooed and won his life-partner, and the scenes of the different stages of his wooing are pointed out with brazen assurance.

It therefore seemed most appropriate, when first I visited Gilsland in a search for rooms, to be mistaken for a member of a wedding-party, and to be greeted with the words, "Ye're just in time to see the bride!"

Gilsland was full of "the bride." It was hopeless to try and get any attention to business until she had passed down the street on her father's arm, amid whispers of, "It's real crêpe de chine,"—"Did ye see how it's cut?" etc.

When I had finished my business, "the bride" still pursued me. I picked up a halfpenny, and was looking round for some child who might have dropped it, when the butcher at his shop door called { 235} out, "That's a looky ha'-penny, cast at the bride. Ye'll be the next. Ye must keep it."

I had no intention of being "the next," so I gave it to a small boy for his money-box, while the butcher looked his disapproval. It evidently was not "the thing" to have done in sentimental Gilsland.

It was from Gilsland, later, that I visited Bewcastle, and walked back along the Roman road known as the Maiden Way.

At first we could not get a car to take us, but finally the butcher came to the rescue, and said that if we did not mind the car in which he sent round the meat, he would have it very thoroughly cleaned. It was easily convertible into a sort of motor-waggonette, to hold six people, and was really quite comfortable. The only drawback was that we caused great disappointment to all the dogs of the villages we went through. They recognized the front of the vehicle, and the driver, and came up wagging their tails, to receive a nasty shock on finding that the contents of the rear portion were human beings and not meat.

It was a lovely run; past the ruin of Triermain Castle, then to Askerton Castle, a beautiful old Border fortification, which we stopped and viewed, { 236} copying down two inscriptions, scratched, one on the lead of the roof, and the other on the staircase. The first was:

This reminds me of a Border story, connected with Bewcastle, of a man, a "rough customer," who wanted to claim kinship with a Scotsman, declaring that he was himself a "Border Scot." "Gude faith, I dinna doubt it," said the true Scot; "the coarsest part of the cloth is aye at the border."

On we went, across the Bewcastle Waste, wild and barren, till Bewcastle itself came into view, with its church, its castle, and a few houses.

The church and castle are built on the site of a Roman fort standing above the Kirkbeck Burn.

"Bueth's Castle" is the grimmest old ruin I ever saw, with bare walls standing up in forbidding sternness.

The church is said to date back to the Conquest. There are four holes in the wall, through which the dwellers in the castle used to keep watch against their enemies. It had till lately shown the beautiful grey stone inside, but when we were there it had just been distempered buff colour all over—stone { 237} walls, stone columns, font, and all! Fortunately they had omitted to distemper the curiously carved eighteenth-century tombstones in the churchyard, and the Runic Cross!

This last is a magnificent example of early Christian art amongst the Anglo-Saxons, with a runic inscription which has been translated thus:

"This slender sign of victory set up
Hwaetred, Wothgaer, Olw-wolthu,
to Alcfrith, a king and son of
Oswy. Pray for ..."

There are figures of Jesus Christ and of St. John the Baptist; and also of King Alcfrith, whom it commemorates, holding a hawk. He is said to have died of the yellow plague in 664 A.D.

There is very beautiful ornamental work on the other three sides; vines, with birds and squirrels in amongst the leaves, and elaborate interlacing fret.

Three of us walked back from Bewcastle by the Maiden Way; we kept losing the way and finding it again; but we struck all the landmarks, and it finally brought us out, "according to plan," just above Birdoswald. We passed Side Fell, the highest point hereabouts, and came to the Beacon, where the ruins of what was formerly supposed to be a Roman watch-tower are quite unmistakable. In Dr. Bruce's third edition there is a lovely picture of it, with, prominently in the foreground, "a very { 238} human incident," as the newspapers love to say. A brave, top-hatted cavalier, with umbrella raised high above his head, is defending a clinging companion in crinoline skirts from three meek-looking cows, whose tails are curved like fish-hooks over their backs! What a romance lies hidden there! When I saw it, I felt how much I had failed in not peopling the solitudes of the Wall in my pictures! But then, to me, the loneliness is half the charm, and three-quarters of the character. We crossed Spadeadam Waste—such a fascinating name, which takes us back to the very gates of Eden!—and we came to Spadeadam farm-house, where an adamantine old lady in a sunbonnet refused our appeal for milk or tea. Haymaking was in full swing, and she really had more than she could do already, I am sure. Then we crossed the King Water, by stepping-stones, and over the top of the next hill Gilsland came into view.

CONCLUSION

And so I must take leave of the Wall; and Wall must make its exit from this little stage.

"Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so,
And, being done, thus Wall away doth go."
( Midsummer Night's Dream. )

It has not been possible within the limits of this book to say all I should have liked.

The romance of the Museums I have left untouched, with their pathetic relics of the loves, the vanities, the hopes and fears, the sufferings, and the victories of the great people who colonized our land so many years ago.

There is abundant proof that there was some measure of family life enjoyed by the Romans on the wild outposts of the Wall.

The officers had their wives with them; children were born (and lost); sorrowing husbands have left memorials to their wives; disconsolate wives lament, on stone, their husbands.

And trinkets there are in plenty: gold, and silver, and bronze, inlaid with stones; and beautiful { 240} enamel work. At Chesters there is a jet ring inscribed with a monogram, and the legend:

QVIS · SEPA · MEVM · ET · TVVM · DVRANTE · VITA
"Who shall separate me and thee during life?"

Only one definitely Christian inscription has been found, and that is a British tombstone.

Nearly all the inscribed stones show signs of having been purposely smashed; possibly by "Christian" Britons, who thought later that by that means they were doing God service.

It is so much easier to smash stones than to live the Christian life! No doubt the smashing was sometimes a symbolic act, to indicate the renunciation of the old pagan habits, and to remove temptation.

I was very sorry to take leave of the Wall; perhaps even more sorry to take leave of the kindly friends I had made. I met with many instances of the blunt outspokenness of the northern character, but never with a spark of rudeness nor unpleasant familiarity.

As I travelled south in the train, I remembered what Hutton has said: that the Wall "would exhibit its proud head many thousand years"; but that the mounds of the Vallum, "being native earth, would continue to the last trump."

Is this indeed so? Is it, for example, possible that the bunkers on the golf-links I was then passing are the most enduring portion of our civilization? Will pilgrims in the far distant future travel hundreds and thousands of miles to see these, our only contemporary "earth-works," as to a shrine, wondering what great chiefs are buried under them? It might be so, if "native earth" were indeed the most enduring form of construction. But I beg leave to doubt it.

Back in London, it seemed cold and dull at first. I missed the freedom of the Wall, where every one I met had said, "It's a gran' day, the day," as naturally as they had smiled as we passed each other.

Ah! but London has a kind heart too, though circumstances prevent her from wearing it on her sleeve. Many have testified to this in the past, and will testify to it in the future. And therefore in London also there is much that we may surely count amongst the "things that endure."

Old Londinium, older than the Romans, who colonized and fortified but did not found her, is dear to us, in spite of all her fog and smoke and turmoil, for of her also it is true that

[Transcriber's note: the source book's map was scanned in four sections, being too large to scan in one piece. The four sections are from the west coast of Scotland to the east coast. Each illustration can be clicked on to see its matching larger version.]

INDEX

Bridge, Roman, at Chesters, xvi , 72 , 74-80 , 97 ; at Corbridge, 78 ; at Newcastle, 42 ; over Irthing, viii-x .

Castles: Askerton, 235 ; Haughton, 98 ; at Sewingshields, 115 ; Thirlwall, xviii , xix , 155 ; Triermain, 235 .

Granaries, at Chesters, 91 ; at Housesteads, 120 ; at Corstopitum, 230 ; at Birdoswald, 167 .

Hadrian, builder of the Wall, 2 , 14 , 18-21 , 76 , 158 , 169 , 228 ; constructor of the Vallum, 20 , 33 ; Bridge over the Tyne at Newcastle, 42 .

Quarries on Barcombe, 227 ; Black Pasture, 72 ; Bleatarn, 190 ; Cawfields, 141 , 152 ; Coome Crag, 170 ; Greenhead, 151-153 ; at Housesteads, 117 .

Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Archæological Society, xvi , xvii .

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Fort.	Modern Name.	Miles between.	Size.	Gates.	Troops stationed there.	Great Wall joins its Wall.
Segedunum	Wallsend	—	3½ acres	4	4th Cohort Lingones	North Jamb of W. gateway
Pons Aelii	Newcastle	4	?	4	1st Cohort Cornovii	?
Condercum	Benwill Hill	2¼	?	4	1st Ala Asturians	Midway
Vindobala	Rudchester	7	3½ acres	6	1st Cohort Frixagi (Frisii)	"
Hunnum	Halton Chesters	7½	4¼ "	4	Ala Saviniana	"
Cilurnum	Walwick Chesters	6	5¼ "	6	2nd Ala Asturians	"
Procolitia	Carrawburgh	3½	3½ "	4	1st Cohort Batavians	North Rampart
Borcovicium	Housesteads	nearly 5	n'ly 5 "	4	1st Cohort Tungrians	" "
Vindolanda	Chesterholm	—	3¼ acres	4	4th Cohort Gauls	Lies 1 mile south of Great Wall
Æsica	Great Chesters	5½	3 "	4	1st Cohort Asturians	North rampart
Magna	Carvoran	2½	3½ "	4	2nd Cohort Dalmatians	Lies to south of both Wall and Vallum
Amboglanna	Birdoswald	3¼	5½ "	6	1st Cohort Dacians	North rampart
Amboglanna	Birdoswald	3¼	5½ "	6	1st Cohort Dacians	North rampart

Fort.	Troops.	Modern name.
Segedunum.	4th Cohort of the Lingones.	Wallsend.
Pons Aelii.	1st Cohort of the Cornovii.	Newcastle.
Condercum.	1st ala (or wing) of the Asturians.	Benwell Hill.
Vindobala.	1st Cohort of the Frixagi (Frisii)	Rudchester.
Hunnum.	The Savinian ala .	Halton Chesters.
Cilurnum.	2nd ala of Asturians.	Walwick Chesters.
Procolitia.	1st Cohort of the Batavians.	Carrawburgh.
Borcovicium.	1st Cohort of the Tungrians.	Housesteads.
Vindolanda.	4th Cohort of the Gauls.	Chesterholm.
Æsica.	1st Cohort of the Asturians.	Great Chesters.
Magna.	2nd Cohort of the Dalmatians.	Carvoran.
Amboglanna.	1st Cohort of the Dacians, styled "Aelia."	Birdoswald.