I have learned a lot about the Roman occupation of England during my volunteering at the York Minster, so I was excited to visit some of the Northernmost Roman fortresses in England. Bill was an excellent tour guide, as he had visited this area a few years ago.
The Roman Emperor Hadrian realized that the Roman Empire was stretched far too thin, so he decided to pull back their boarders and solidify their control over most of Europe. One of the locations that proved to be very hard to control was the upper region of England and Scotland - those people would just not roll over and allow Rome to rule them - what's up with that?!? So, he thought the best thing to do was to build lots of forts and then one giant wall from the east coast of England to the west coast of England, this wall is now known as Hadrian's wall. It was built during the early 4th century, is 73 miles long, and depending on the location, would have originally stood between 5 - 6 meters (16 − 20 feet) high and about 3 meters (almost 10 feet) wide.
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| Location of Hadrian's Wall |
A fort was located every mile along the wall for soldiers who were stationed at the wall. A few miles south of the wall, a very large settlement/fort called Vindolanda has been an ongoing archeological treasure-trove since it was unearthed in the late 1960s / early 1970s.
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| Roman Fortress Vindolanda |
Vindolanda has been uniquely preserved, thanks to the climate and earthen materials that have been covering the site since the Romans pulled out entirely in the late 300s. The museum at Vindolanda showcased many pairs of well-worn shoes, pottery, jewelry, bones, etc. They have even found party invitations (written by a woman!) and thank you notes buried within the rubble! Sadly, no photos were allowed inside the museum.
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| High Noon at Vindolanda |
Although the days are finally getting longer, this photo illustrates not only the Roman building foundations, but also my long, long shadow at high noon!
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| Hadrian's Wall at Housteads |
One of the wall forts we visited is called Housteads, and is located right along side the wall. You can see the wall dipping up and down the hillside in the photo above. The wall is now much shorter than it once had been, but I'm sure the stones are still nearby - in barn walls, church steeples, farm walls, etc. Why chisel out new rock when you can just bash out some of the already-formed rock squares from that weird, abandoned wall?!
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| Atop Hadrian's Wall |
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| The crazies north of Hadrian's Wall |
And later we hopped down on the Scotland side (we weren't really in Scotland, the boarder is farther north) for a picture of us on the "northern barbarian" side of the wall :)
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| Housteads Fortress and Hadrian's Wall |
By the time we made it to the Housteads fort site, the sun was going down and the site was about to close for the night. I mean, it was 4:30 - shouldn't we all be ready for bed at that late hour?
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| Roman Bath House at Housteads |
We hustled around the site, which was very similar (but smaller) to the Vindolanda site we visited earlier that day. We were able to see the foundations of the barracks, bath house, and high officer's quarters.
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| Bill is cold, but happy |
It was about 2* C (35.6* F) that day, which wasn't too bad, but up on the bluff with the wind whipping all around, it was DAMN cold. I couldn't imagine having to walk the wall all night, waiting and watching for celtic barbarians wearing a wee roman man-skirt and sandals. I'm sure they had a cloak, but still - Brrrrr!!!
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| Keeping watch |
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