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.

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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."

And again:

"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."

A royal licence to fortify the older building had been granted in 1307.

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.

I will describe the interior here, though I saw it later.

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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.

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