We all have our bucket lists in life and Julie and I share a few items in common. We both have had a desire to walk Hadrian’s Wall, the ancient barrier between England and Scotland. Now my vision has always been my pack on my back, hiking stick in hand, singing away as I go “Val-de-re….Val-de-ra” as I trek from my B&B. In this vision I am 35 years old, 50 pounds lighter and a well oiled machine. This is not exactly how it came down today at the creaky age of 68 but it was a wonderful day just the same. We awoke to sunshine and took off on a hour and a half drive north-east to the village of Birdoswald. We were met by Julie’s cousin Christine who drove over from Durham to spend the day with us.
Our arrival at the wall and the beautiful view was all that we anticipated. The rolling pastoral hills run off to the horizon with the stone wall, built of chiseled block, appearing like a ribbon laid out on the land. For 300 hundred years during the Roman rule of Britannia the wall stood as the Northern most border of the Roman Empire. The extent of the empire at this zenith stretched to present day Iraq and south to the Sahara desert. The border at this point runs 73 miles (80 Roman miles) at the narrowest point on the land.
There has been much research on the Roman rule and it continues most actively today. New finds as recently as 2014 can be seen from the active dig in a beautiful museum at the Vindolanda site. We visited two portions of the wall, that of the fort at Birdoswald and the main base of operations at Vindolanda. The main base housed barracks for the three legions that occupied the area, baths, storage buildings and an extensive home for the commander of the force and his family. An active dig was in progress and we just happened to meet the director of research who we later recognized as the principal in the recent National Geographic film. As I talked with him at the edge of the dig he explained that thinking about the wall has changed in recent years. The long held idea of a barrier to keep out the raiding Picts and Scots is true but it served much more as a gate for controlling trade and collecting taxes. Military bases and the villages to support them are being discovered pointing to the great number of people who resided in this area. While I stood at the site one of the student archeologists gave out a shout of excitement as she dug up a roman coin. This site is unique in the study of the Roman Empire as it is the largest and most extensive archeological dig of a border site for the empire.
The building skills of the Romans are legend and this site does not disappoint. We learned how the local population would have been involved in the construction. Roman masons would have trained skilled workers over many generations. The Romans during the later period of their occupation would have also brought strong Christian influence. When the Romans withdrew in the 400’s they would have left a skilled labor force who then deconstructed the Roman buildings and built the magnificent Homes, Cathedrals and Abbeys which remain today.
A days visit to the wall of course does not do it justice but our little glimpse of this period added to our fascination with travel and history. It was a lovely reunion with Christine. We had a nice pub lunch together and said goodbyes with the hope of seeing each other again in the future. Christine, who owns with her husband a craft brewery, left me a gift of a case of wonderful beer samples from her brewery. I can’t bring these home so my work is cut out for me over the next week and a half.
Julie and I drove back to our cottage in hopes of some good weather for the rest of the week and a good nights rest. We were light on the hiking today but not light on the memories. Strolling, history, photography and a partner to share it with is a pleasant pursuit of which I feel truly blessed.
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