Hadrian’s Wall at Walltown Crags

© Kanovium Project

This image was taken in late August of 1993, at Walltown crags, the visit to the wall had been a revelation, one that I will never forget.  This section from here onto Housesteads in particular gave a vivid impression of how the frontier would have looked originally.  Slightly to the south is the Roman military way, a narrow road, which linked fort to fort, and it takes a more sensible route than the wall.  This road with side kerbs mostly in place and the rough cobbled surface, you could imagine a small group of Roman soldiers to suddenly appear.  Surely no place in Britain can convey such an impression, the rough grass land and reeds can surely not have changed at all since the Roman soldiers marched here.  Hadrian’s Wall has this effect on you that once you visit the area you will always want to return, I was sorry to leave, but have returned many times since.

What is good about Walltown is that the hoards of camera clicking tourists in their coaches don’t ever make it up here, therefore up here an aura of the past remains it is not present at sites such as Housesteads, Birdoswald, Chesters or Vindolanda during the day time, but Birdoswald in the evening holds one of the strangest atmospheres I have ever encountered, and most of the famous sites are best visited at this time of the day if you want to have the places to yourself.

Reach Walltown  half a mile east out of Greenhead on the B6318, a short climb and you will see a sign left for Qreenhead Quarry.  The quarry has been landscaped  as part of the Hadrian’s Wall trail, which finally opened on Friday 23rd May 2003.  New footpaths now lead you through the quarry, soon you reach the slope of Walltown crags, go through the gate, and turn left and climb the steep slope up to the wall, you soon arrive at a turret which is number 45a, the wall here is narrow wall on the broad foundation as can be seen from this image, while the wall is narrower than easterly sections it is still an impressively large piece of work as the figure conveys, it steps down the Nicks impressively on the stepped foundation so common in Roman structures (east gate at Caerhun) and in other peoples words ‘looks effortless in the contouring undulations of the Nicks’.  Greenhead Quarry has been responsible for the sad truncation of the Wall, and it is possible to view the Wall ending dramatically at the eastern end of the quarry, it is also strange to stand in the quarry and imagine the wall running high above you, of course now this is a void.  This is the end of the dramatic mountainous sections of the frontier, but the Roman army museum at Carvoran provides a reasonable impression of the Roman army, much of the equipment being supplied by British Roman re-enactment societies, who in the main don’t cut any corners.

South East Rampart Corner at Housesteads

© Kanovium Project

The fort wall at Housesteads.  The figure stands next to the South Western corner, which in typical Roman military fashion is a round angle.  This method of laying out the angle prior to the placing of the footings was done with the Roman surveying tool, the Groma.  The Groma was used also by civilians and was the characteristic tool comprising of a vertical pole with a rotating section, top, which had four arms each with a suspended weight, to obtain readings two of the suspended strings had to be aligned with a surveying pole similar to what is still used today in building practices.  The Groma was known to not be that accurate, vagaries in both user method and the lie of the land (obstacles, uneven ground) could mean that results often turned out to be rather vague, it would seem that it excelled in marking out the typical grid plan of Roman cities and forts, but could produce inaccuracies in round angles such as this.  Baillie Reynolds comments in Kanovium that while the North East and South East corners were certainly true, the North Western round corner was certainly not, and this is clearly visible on his plan.  It seems clear that the Roman soldiers responsible for such work, the ‘agrimensorii’ or architectural surveyors, who would have been ‘immunii’ or exempt from actual military action, had rather a slap dash approach to their work, even though paid to a higher level than the normal legionary, who would actually be responsible for building the structures.  A point I have raised in the Kanovium Project is inconsistent laying out is a common factor at the Caerhun site, now this as I have said probably represents the soldiers building, or even a later working party, not feeling it is their job to amend mistakes made by the agrimensorii or their fellow troops, therefore mistakes in planning were generally ignored and we get inconstancies which are still evident today.  While I have dealt with Caerhun elsewhere, a such inaccuracy can be seen on this image.  The fort wall at Housesteads appeared to have been constructed before the curtain of Hadrian’s frontier, so when it was time the curtain was ‘butted up’ to the far corner, many fort structures exhibit butting, and this is a clear indicator that the work was subsequent to the original design and of a later period.  Butting means that rather than two pieces of wall being of the same stone or brick courses, that the later wall course is simply laid up against the former and shows no interlocking of courses.  Now here, at the point that the curtain meets the corner, seen rising up the steep slope from Knag Burn below, the height of the curtain meant that it totally blocked out the North Eastern corner tower, the angle being too acute to allow the tower to see clear ground to the North and to Caledonia, so that tower just like the river gate at Caerhun, was simply a folly.  The Romans are rather strange in such respects, rather than decommission the redundant structure, it would be maintained on a similar basis to actual vital buildings, again they obviously worked by the book, possibly it is easy to imagine agrimensorii and the centurii of the fort scratching their heads over such problems, but not really losing any sleep over it.  It may just point to the Roman military machine being rather inept and not as technically perfect as we are led to believe.  While in referring the later 2nd century writers who have a bias to the ‘pure’ legionary troops often attribute such poor quality work to the auxilia.  The accepted theory is that toward the end of the reign of Hadrian, the mixed foot and horse cohort known as Equis or equestrian was given greater status, and was actually educated to a greater level than was allowed in the 1st century.  This resulted in the auxilia now actually building their own forts, camps, epigraphy, this previously only being the confines of the legion troops.  Now to say the resulting work done by the auxilia would automatically be of an inferior nature is absurd, the provincial troops had been largely intigrated wholesale at least by the time of the Flavian emperors, and would have been well familiar in building practice.  Many legion troops are known to have been drawn from Celtic peoples, and the instance of the legionaries being actual Roman Italians (which in it self obviously does not guarantee intelligence) had largely ceased by the end of the 1 st century A.D.  Therefore we can now see practice camps, tiny versions of a full sized forts being constructed by the auxilia, and examples of these can be seen in North Wales at Dolddinas close to the fort at Tomen y Mur.  At this period of the 2nd century the garrison here even had their own tile works at Pen y Stryd, South of the site, adjacent to the Sarn Helen road.  Stamped tiles of a cohort of either Cornovii or Celtiberians from nearby Caersws forts of a similar date clearly illustrates the upgrading of the auxilia. 

Why this raise in auxilia status? my source for this essay is found in Edward Luttwak The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, The John Hopkins University Press 1976  Luttwak argues that at this period of time many legions had been camp bound, having family and financial ties with the region in which their fortresses were situated, and not only had they become rather lazy and insubordinate, they had also become a bit thinly stretched over the frontiers of the Roman Empire.  Why stretched? well in the 1st century the frontiers had been guarded by ‘Client Kingdoms’ these are either annexed territory, or states that are aware to fight against Rome would be folly so agree to terms, clearly they are puppet states as Tacitus comments in his Annals, ‘they gladly accepted the Roman trappings, but really they just are the trappings of slavery’
 
 
This type of ‘friendly slavery’ could not really last, Boudicca of the Brtons being a clear example, her rebellion which nearly lost Britannia to the Romans was one such factor in ending the client state, the A.D 60-1 point of her rebellion ends the client kingdom for ever, they had proved unsuccessful in the Eastern part of their empire.  Result? the legions have to be brought forward to the frontiers, previous they had been camped deeper into the empire, now the task of being border guards was down to them.  For one they wouldn’t have relished the prospect, and for two there would not have been enough of them to go around, so the auxilia now became the builders and border guards, a task always expected of them anyway.  In Britain there appears to be no camp bound lazy legions, the bases at Caerleon and Chester show only evidence for a cadre garrisons, the soldiers not only constructing the Southern wall, but actually garrisoning forts on the Northern Antonine wall, around A.D 150 a vexillation of 20 Valeria Victrix even garrisoned the above Housesteads fort.

The figure above stands a little over five feet tall, the remains of the fort wall stand to at least six feet, and probably they stood at just a little under two thirds taller originally, with a wall walk, which probably had castellations.  The condition of the wall now is misleading, originally it would have been tightly rendered, this having long since decayed, or removed by Victorian antiquaries for cosmetic reasons, and may also have been white washed, while white coral decoration was employed at Birdoswald Banna fort, brought up from the River Irthing below the fort.  This was in the 4th century, the wall above is mostly this period, though shows much patching of the original 2nd century wall.  North of the figure is Caledonia, a road struck out from the North gate via a ramp, as the slope down to the moorland was fairly steep, again removed by antiquaries for cosmetic reasons in the 19th century, later as the gate was blocked due to diminished garrisons a road with customs barrier was constructed at the Knag Burn.  The area North would have still been Roman property and reveal occasional Roman type occupation similar to vicii.

The South Portal of the West Gate at Housesteads

© Kanovium Project

Hadrian’s Wall, now recognized as a World Heritage site, which now accords the remains the same status, attention and protection as any world class site, for example, the Pyramids, or the Colloseum, does not disappoint, in fact the remains stir the individuals mind, and somehow the Romans and their army seem a tiny bit less remote.  The remains of Hadrian’s great defense not only include the actual curtain itself but is a far more complicated arrangement, and features, not only forts but bridges, aqueducts, the Vallum, roads, bath houses, rural shrines, quarries, temples, tombs, monuments and before this gets to sound like something from Monty Python, these following images give some impression of what a Roman site in a less than robbed out state than the forts and remains of North Wales looks like today.  Incidentally, the Wall has been called the best preserved example of Roman frontier work anywhere in what was their empire, the area between Carvoran and Chesters is absolutely littered with the above examples, and all it really is then and today is a wind swept moor, split by the Whin Sill ridge of basalt rock.

This is the stunning West gate of Vercovicium, ‘The Place of Able Fighters’ according to Guy de la Bedoyere’s translation, known today by the enigmatic old Northumbrian name of Housesteads.  This site features most of the above mentioned features, sitting astride the Whin Sill, it sinuously features the contours of the  hill crest and is considered today the best preserved Roman fort in Britain, if not Europe.  This image shows only half of the West gate, and at least six feet high it must stand to about a third of the original height.  The figure stands roughly 6 feet tall and to his left can just be seen the ‘springer stone’ for the arch, the arch literally ‘springs’ from this stone and it takes little imagination to envisage how this gateway would have looked originally, and would have blotted out any sky seen on this image, it is monumental architecture, almost of a cathedral nature, and all Roman forts had four of these gates, always (terrain permitting) in exactly the same position in the rampart wall.  The stone columns to the right of the figure are called ‘the Spina’ they divided the arches, which here would have been four, and also housed the springer stones, the gatehouse either side of the spina had been reached by a door way which again divided the spina into two, this can be seen on this image.  Kanovium had two such gates, the East gate still has the spina in position, but robbed to a lower level than this one, but size and dimensions seem similar, though the towers at Kanovium, including the floors even had been absolutely removed.  At the Wall things are different, seemingly less people lived there and the Roman stones remain in positions untouched.

The figure stands upon the door sill of the gate, worn stones that betray wear done by centuries of Roman carts, as do indeed road cambers and gate sills at Caerhun.  Roman military gates featured no hinges, which indeed had been invented by this time as many are found in connection with caskets, boxes, and furniture, no, the military used pole hung gates.  This pole which was fixed to the gate doors was tipped with an iron point which rotated within an iron bearing sleeve, the reason this method was used was because it rendered the enemy unable to uproot the doors, the bearing sleeves can be seen at Chesters, still the blocks of stone, here the blocks and holes can be see.  The East gate at Caerhun revealed traces of one of these stones, but had been smashed at some time in antiquity.  The pole hung gate barred up tightly against the  stonework of the gate jamb, and according to evidence from Chesters would have been of oak and studded with iron studs, very much in the manner portrayed on Hollywood films.  These twin towers had  access from ground level, but from the wall walk a ladder was need to gain access, from this gate the Roman road struck out heading for the next fort in the system.

Ronald Embleton comments that the gates of Housesteads are more architecturally ornate than any other Wall fort, and none so more than the west gate, which incidentally is considered to be the best example to be seen on the Wall, I disagree, then I occasionally do, the east gate at Birdoswald is at least the equal of this one.  R.J.A Wilson describes this gate as ‘still standing to a spectacular height’.  During the 4th century the south tower was converted into a heated room, perhaps.