Chapter XII: Housesteads to Peel Crag

BORCOVICIUM

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.

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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.

Prior to the building of the Wall the east gate was the most available route.

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.

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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 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.

Severus's reconstructions are much better work than some of the later ones.

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.

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.

It looks so easy to cut one of these slices of "chocolate-mould." But it isn't!

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!

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