Ancient Rome

Hadrian’s Wall: The World Heritage Site on my Doorstep

By Andy Fleming on | From andromedachild.blogspot.com

Hadrian's Wall Milecastle 39 at Cawfields.

ANDY FLEMING is fortunate to live close to the World Heritage Site of Hadrian’s Wall, near his home in Hartlepool, UK, and investigates the history and raison d’être of this superb ancient feat of engineering.

The late ‘Railway’ Bishop Eric Treacy argued that the three wonders of northern England were the Settle to Carlisle Railway, York Minster and Hadrian’s Wall. I agree on all three counts, the latter feat of Roman engineering being one of the most important sites in the Roman Empire outside Rome itself.

My family is extremely fortunate to live in an area of such outstanding natural and manmade beauty. Long gone are the dark satanic mills, swept away in the de-industrialisation of the 1980. The landscape of the north east once again resembles England’s green and pleasant land. We’ve always been interested in history, my wife, for example has a degree in the subject, and we’re long-standing members of members of both English Heritage and the National Trust. For me however, my special avid historical interest ever since childhood has always been all things Roman.

Inside the reconstructed bath house at Segedunum (Wallsend) Roman Fort. The reconstruction includes all of the features of a fully working Roman Fort bath house including latrines, and hot and cold rooms.

It’s not hard to see why I’m in good company, and why so many British people are fascinated by the ancient Romans. Much of our language is derived, at least in part, from their language of Latin, much of our legal system is based on Roman law and its administration, many of our main roads have been metalled above Roman roads, many of our towns and cities follow the original Roman street patterns, many of our imperial measurements were based on Roman units, they invented concrete and the arch, plumbing and drainage was a Roman invention... even our central heating systems resemble Roman hypocausts.

And that’s not all, the early Roman Republic and its Senate introduced a form of government and legislature which wouldn’t be out of place in the modern world. Indeed, even when the Republic was usurped by Julius Caesar at the onset of Imperial Rome, the similarities between the power of the Roman head of state and the principle of the divine right of kings in Tudor Britain is striking. Even the Roman system of patronage and the encouragement of client kingdoms in the fertile and resource-rich lands of subjugated chiefs and tribes is not dissimilar to the present policy of the west, whereby in oil-rich areas of conflict such as the Middle East western sponsored kingdoms ensure supplies of vital commodities.

Perhaps more than anything else though, it is what the Roman Empire, its rise to power, its customs and its final downfall in the west in 473AD tells us about our own civilisation and perhaps its eventual fate that is most revealing. These are perhaps the most potent of reasons why ancient Rome is so fascinating to those of us living in Britain, and indeed much of Western Europe. Of course the popularisation of history, and Roman history in particular by the likes of excellent presenters and historians such as Guy de la Bédoyère, the superb and charismatic Bettany Hughes on the Roman Invasion of Britain and of course Tony Robinson on Channel 4’s remarkable Time Team.

Temple of Mithras (Mithraeum) at Brocolita (Carrawburgh)

However, for us residents of northern England there is yet another, more practical reason why the Romans figure in our thoughts so much. It’s the presence of a line in the sand, marking the edge of the Empire, the edge of the civilised world, completed within six years of the start of its construction in 122AD. It is Emperor Hadrian’s most famous project... Hadrian’s Wall, now a World Heritage Site and most of it now in the capable custodianship of English Heritage, and the National Trust so that future generations can enjoy this remarkable feat of engineering, constructed in antiquity.

Excavations at Vindolanda (Chesterholm)

The landscape of Northern England is generously sprinkled with copious amounts of evidence of the immense Roman presence in Britain during their four hundred years of occupation, starting with the invasion by Emperor Claudius in 43AD. The importance with which the Empire’s central administration regarded its most northerly of provinces, Britannia, cannot be underestimated. For most of the Roman rule of Britain, there were more Roman legions stationed in the province per head of population than anywhere else in the Empire. And it’s not difficult to see why either. The islands are rich both agriculturally and geologically, but they were remote Rome. To the average Roman soldier, (some of whom had even considered a revolt before the initial Claudian invasion) they were populated not just by barbarians but monsters an evil spirits. In reality the army’s heavy presence was down to a history of revolts by the native population (such as the Boudican revolt and the sacking of Colchester by the Iceni, in 60AD), and usurping Roman governors who had the eyes on a unilateral declaration of independence or even emperorship in Rome. By the third century AD Saxon raids on eastern Romano-British coastal towns and cities were becoming a severe problem (leading to the construction of the so called Saxon ports, and the strengthening of coastal defences and town walls in locations such as Richborough and Portchester in Kent).

The remains of the roman town of Corstopitum (Corbridge)

However, throughout the Roman occupation, a threat that was never successfully neutralised was the tribes north of Hadrian’s Wall constructed, most notably the Picts and Scots, who succeeded on several occasions in invading south, deep into Roman-occupied territory. It’s not surprising then that the Roman legionary base of Eboracum (present day York) was superbly connected by the main Roman road Dere Street to the border zone. Infact the whole of northern England north of York could be considered as militarised, despite the existence of a large number of villas, and civilian towns and settlements such as Isurium Brigantum (Aldborough), Derventio (Malton), the well excavated Corbridge Roman town(Corstopitum) and Cataractonium (Catterick). Superb examples of intermediary forts in this militarised zone can be seen at Binchester, near Bishop Auckland, with less well excavated remains at Lanchester and Ebchester, all in County Durham.

But it is the 73 mile long Hadrian’s Wall itself, and its present day remains that is the most awe-inspiring of constructions. Stretching from Bowness-on-Solway, south west of the present day English/Scottish border city of Carlisle to Wallsend (Segedunum), the wall consists of a network of milecastles, and turrets devised, constructed, administered and regulated in a colossal undertaking, every bit as impressive as the administration of some of our major military and social institutions today.

A stunning view of Housesteads Roman Fort (Vercovicium) taken from the air.

Within a few years it was decided to add seventeen full-sized forts along the length of the wall, including Vercovicium (Housesteads), Cilurnum (Chesters, one of the best preserved Roman cavalry forts in the Empire) and Banna (Birdoswald), each holding between 500 and 1,000 auxiliary troops (no legions were posted to the wall). Needless to say, all of these sites are well worth visiting, and are all on either the A69 or B6318 main roads.

The bath house and latrines at Chesters (Cilurnum) Roman Cavalry Fort.

South of the wall, further forts were constructed including Chesterholm (Vindolanda), (famous for its anaerobically preserved hand written tablets by Roman soldiers to their families in other parts of the Empire such as Dalmatia and Syria, and a well preserved vicus, or civilian settlement that supplied the fort with goods and services) and Arbeia (South Shields), protecting the estuary of the River Tyne. There is a nominal entry payable to English Heritage, the National Trust or the Vindolanda Trust (members of these organisations enjoy free entry and parking).

North of the wall there was a ditch that any invaders would have to enter whilst being showered by projectiles from Roman soldiers on the Wall itself. Immediately to the south of the Wall and for its full length ran the Stanegate or military road, and also a shallow wide ditch or Vallum.

The Wall’s raison d’être is still the subject of much speculation and conjecture. The speculation that it was built purely as a defensive fortification against tribes and cattle rustlers north of the border is dubious, and it’s much more likely it that this reason coupled with its use as a customs barrier, immigration control point and its sheer symbolism of the power of the Roman Empire is the real motivation behind its construction.

Arbeia Roman Fort and Museum, South Shields. Reconstruction of gatehouse. (image courtesy of Ytne and Wear Museums Service).

The Wall was abandoned in the years after Hadrian's death in AD 138. The new emperor, Antonius Pius once again tried to over-extend the Empire, leaving it occupied in a support role only, and began building a new wall called the Antonine Wall, about 100 miles north, in what later became known as the Scottish Lowlands. However, like emperors before him, Antonius was unable to conquer the northern tribes, and it was left to Marcus Aurelius to abandon the Antoine Wall and reoccupy Hadrian's Wall as the main defensive barrier in 164AD. The wall remained occupied by Roman troops until their withdrawal from Britain.

By the late fourth century, barbarian invasions, economic decline, and military coups loosened the Empire's hold on Britain. By 410AD, the Roman administration and its legions were gone, and Britain was left to look to its own defences and government. The garrisons, by now probably made up mostly of local Britons who had nowhere else to go, probably lingered on in some form for generations. Archaeology is beginning to reveal that some parts of the wall remained occupied well into the fifth century.

But in time, however, the wall was abandoned and fell into ruin. Over the centuries and even into the twentieth century a large proportion of the stone was robbed out and reused in other local buildings, such as churches and farms. Proof of this lies in the fact that it’s not unusual, for example, to find Roman decorated and inscriptive building stones in the walls of churches.

What remains today of Hadrian’s Wall is still extremely impressive and the structure should be on the itinerary of any serious visitor to northern England. It symbolises the supreme confidence that its builders had in the technology available to them in antiquity, and it is a testament to the power and might of Imperial Rome... the Empire from which much of western civilisation is derived.

And how lucky am I to have this living history right on my doorstep!

From the excavations at each Roman fort on display to members of the public today, it’s apparent that the design and construction of the forts followed a regulated, set pattern. Housesteads, for example is a carbon copy of Roman forts excavated in the Middle East in places such as Syria. Indeed, regulations were often followed to extremes, and there are examples of milecastles literally built exactly every mile, even if the essential need for unobstructed views was obfuscated and they were constructed in the bottoms of small valleys! Such an example is the milecastle at 'Sycamore Gap', made famous in the movie, Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.