Chapter V: The Walk: Wallsend to Walbottle

I decided to begin my walk at the Newcastle end because I thought it would be the least interesting part, and I wanted to get it over. However, it proved far more interesting than I expected.

I reached Newcastle from King's Cross at five o'clock on a May morning, and, booking my luggage, I started off at once, knapsack on back, for Wallsend.

The sun had risen, and though the houses hid it, rosy clouds that faced me proclaimed its presence as I turned eastwards.

Along Collingwood Street I went, across Pilgrim Street, then under the railway-arch which crosses City Road; and there, on my right, were the ruins of the old Sallyport gateway, which stand near--if not on--the line of the wall.

Then past "St. Dominic's Priory," with its modern buildings and prosaic brass-plate, to Byker Bridge, over the valley of the Ouseburn, which appears to be all valley and very little burn. At first I searched {40} in vain for any sign of water; I saw only a valley full of rubbish. And the stony bed of the little stream contained even more broken crockery than stones.

Byker Hill followed, lined with small shops. I sighed as I remembered what it had looked like in the eighteenth century. For before "industrial necessities" claimed it (as shown in Dr. Bruce's third edition) it was a country road with a picturesque windmill on the hill, a large piece of Wall still standing, and a beautiful view of the city and the Tower of St. Nicholas' Church (now the Cathedral) in the distance!

Turning to the left along Shields Road, I was amused to see an old woman, in dirty apron and grey shawl, going round knocking at much be-curtained windows on the ground floor with a small hammer: "Lizzie, it's well-nigh six o'clock"; "Mary, it's time ye riz;" and so on, at house after house. It was my first sight of a "knocker-up."

The misty valley of the Tyne began to show on my right, with clusters of chimneys peering through the mist. I thought Shields Road would never end; but it brought me to Wallsend at last. There I turned to the right, and lighted at once on Hadrian Street! And, spying an "inscribed stone" on a building opposite, I crossed over, and this is what I read:

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"The Eastern Gateway of
the Roman Camp of
SEGEDUNUM
stood about twenty yards
to the south of this spot
and remains of it were found
when this house was built
Anno Domini 1912."

The building is Simpson's Hotel, Wallsend. And so I really had reached the Wall's End (although for me it was the Wall's Beginning) in the midst of a wilderness of houses.

There are drawings in Newcastle which show the south-east angle of Segedunum in 1848, with grassy banks, and trees, and a peaceful river, and not a house to be seen.

I wandered down towards the Tyne now, to get an idea of where that south-east angle must have been, but it seemed hopeless, with buildings crowded thickly together as they are. There should be a stone to mark the site, but I did not find it. The Wall ran down from this corner right into the river, just as it did at the other end, into the Solway, at Bowness, to cut off the passage of an enemy.

While part of Messrs. Swan & Hunter's shipyard was being levelled, prior to the building of the _Mauretania_, this part of the Wall was discovered, not far from the river-bank. The _Carpathia_ was "completing" at the time at the same yard, and several Wall-stones were placed in the saloon in a glass case.

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I turned westward along Hadrian Street, past the row of houses called "The Roman Wall," and made for the farm-house of Old Walker. The Wall-ditch can be seen at intervals, and fragments of the core; and I could recognize Wall-stones in the farm-house. I saw no signs of mile-castles, though there should be two before we reach Byker Hill, nor did I trace any further signs of Wall, though I followed its course as I had come--by the Priory, Sallyport Gate, Wall Knoll, Pilgrim Street, and St. Nicholas' Church (the Cathedral), of which Leland says, writing about 1539: "S. Nicolas Chirch in Newcastel stondith on the Picth Waulle."

Newcastle was the second fort on the line, the fort of PONS AELII, so-called from the bridge which Hadrian, who was of the Ælian family, built across the Tyne. The present Swing Bridge marks the site of Hadrian's Bridge, which appears to have lasted, with various repairs, till 1248 A.D. Traces of the old Roman piers have been found. The exact site of the fort of Pons Aelii has not been ascertained.

From the railway station at Newcastle, the line of the Wall is up Westgate Hill, on the very road itself; and the Vallum ran parallel to it, along the south side of the road, as is shown in a drawing by H. B. Richardson, made in 1848, before the houses were built there. No traces of either are now to be seen.

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In a nurseryman's garden on the right, as I neared Benwell Hill, I noticed a very beautiful head, evidently of Roman workmanship. It was only a mask, with a little drapery hanging from it, and might have served as the keystone of an arch. The laughing eyes looked downwards, the mouth slightly open with a gentle smile, the hair parted in the middle, and brought in waves rather low over the forehead. There was very delicate modelling about the mouth. I went up to the house, and asked to be allowed to make a drawing of this head. The nurseryman's wife told me that her husband's grandfather had dug it up in his ground {44} as well as other Roman treasures. She showed me a tiny Roman altar, no more than a small stone bowl with a foot, in which she said many a Christian baby had been baptized. They used to send over and borrow it for baptisms at the mission opposite. It had been dark in colour once, like the head, but she had scrubbed it till it was quite light.

The fonts of the churches at Haydon Bridge and at Chollerton have both been Roman altars.

So here we have pagan altars adapted to Christian uses, just as we have pagan festivals in the Church's calendar; and pagan marriage and funeral customs, borrowed from Rome, and used in the Christian Church even to the present day.

After sketching the smiling lady, and finding her fascination grow in the process, I continued my way up the hill, until I saw on the right a large reservoir, and on the left three private houses, known as Condercum, Condercum House, and Pendower. Here the road cuts right across the site of the Roman fort of CONDERCUM, the third on the line.

The gardener at Pendower was busy just inside the gate, so I inquired about the Roman remains, and he readily consented to show me what was to be seen. He led me past mighty rhododendrons, in full bloom, to the southern side of the garden, where what was evidently a fine piece of the southern wall of the fort was still standing, some 30 feet long. {45} overgrown with London pride and bluebells, and shadowed by beautiful trees. Part of a lintel lay amongst the stones.

Hearing that I was "walking the Wall," the gardener recommended to me the Temperance Hotel at Matfen, kept by some friends of his, and I made a note of it for future use, and now pass on the recommendation to my readers. Accommodation along the Wall is not too easy to get. Matfen is a very pretty village, 2 miles north of the Wall, at a point 14 miles west of Newcastle.

The gardener pointed out to me, over the dividing fence, the foundations of the little temple in the grounds of Condercum House, to which I next made my way. Here another friendly gardener came to my aid, and I saw the temple at close quarters, with its stone pavement, circular apse, and solemn grouping of yew-trees round the apsidal end. These yews were evidently planted soon after the temple was excavated, some forty years ago. There was a rough stone head of the Sun-god, and there were mill-stones "for the women to grind the sacred corn during the temple-services"--so said my guide. Two altars, which stood in their places at the ends of the apse when the building was uncovered, are now in the Blackgate Museum, Newcastle.

The eastern wall of the fort runs through these grounds. I was told that some of the Roman {46} masonry had been knocked down by soldiers who occupied the house during the recent war, and that it had been very unsatisfactorily replaced by masons.

The family was away, so the gardener let me roam about by myself; and in a sunny meadow sloping down towards the Tyne, I found distinct traces of the suburban buildings of the fort. The Vallum is here recognizable for the first time, towards the south.

And now to return to the road. Hutton says of the Wall in this part: "Its bare stones under my feet are frequently distinguishable from those used for mending the road." But the tarred surface for motor-cars has quite obliterated every sign of the old stones now.

It was getting very hot when I left Condercum, and this same tarred surface made walking rather trying, for in many places it had become soft and sticky with the heat, and not even the path on either side had been left free. At some points the very gutters ran with tar. There was no shade from trees overhead, except at long intervals; it was "the hottest day of the year," as the papers said next day, though as yet it wanted an hour or so of noon. But I trudged on, inspired by my quest, and well knowing that my first day was bound to be my worst day, compelled, as I was, to keep to the hard high road. For 19 miles out of Newcastle {47} the road runs mainly upon the foundations of the Wall.

A steep hill, Benwell Hill, leads down from Condercum to East Denton. It was on this hill that John Wesley, with his step-daughter and grand-children, had a narrow escape from injury or death. The horses took fright, and ran away, dashing through a closed gate as if it had been a cobweb, and then across a corn-field. The little girls were terrified, but Wesley writes: "I told them, 'Nothing will hurt you; do not be afraid'; feeling no more fear or care than if I had been sitting in my study." The horses stopped suddenly, just on the brink of a precipice.

At the bottom of the hill, the road crosses Denton Burn, once a pretty stream, but now dry; I saw only a dirty green puddle in which a dirty brown sparrow was trying to bathe. Just before the burn, on the left, a stile leads to the very first piece of Wall which appears above ground. It is only a few paces south of the road, and has been enclosed by a wooden fence, but a mere fraction of the fence was left; the rest had apparently been stolen for firewood. This piece of Wall is 9½ feet wide. When Hutton saw it, it was 36 feet long, and had an apple-tree growing on it. There is much less left now, and even the dead trunk of the apple-tree has gone.

Mounting the opposite hill, I soon came to Denton {48} Hall, a ghost-haunted old house on the right, built of Wall-stones in 1503 by the monks of Tynemouth, as a summer residence. A few sculptured stones from the Wall are to be seen in the hall. Mrs. Elizabeth Montague, "The Queen of the Blue Stocking," lived there from 1760, and entertained many distinguished guests.

Now I felt that I had at last got beyond Newcastle. The fields were golden with buttercups; the may-trees were masses of pearly white; beneath them the cattle stood drowsily in the heat; and away in the distance the hills south of the Tyne lost themselves in a blue haze.

Opposite Denton Hall, the core of the Wall can be seen, and the Vallum, running along the bottom of the meadow.

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