Chapter III: Descriptive

What is this Wall like, of which we have heard so much?

It consists of three parts:

1. A Stone Wall with a ditch on its northern side.

2. A series of forts, mile-castles and Wall turrets, connected by roads.

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.

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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.

Many old writers have made reference both to the stone Wall and the Vallum.

Camden, the antiquary, writing in 1587, says:

"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.

Sir Christopher Ridley, Vicar of Haltwhistle, about 1572, writes:

"The breadth iij yardis, the hyght remaneth in sum placis yet vij yardis."

Samson Erdeswick, visiting the Wall in 1574, says:

"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."

Camden, who was here in 1599, saw it 15 feet high:

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

This must have been on the edge of the crags of the Nine Nicks of Thirlwall.

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.

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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.

Camden says of it:

"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 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:

_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, Birdoswald.
styled "Aelia."

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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.

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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.

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