It was from Gilsland, later, that I visited Bewcastle, and walked back along the Roman road known as the Maiden Way.
Bewcastle is 11 miles from Gilsland, right away across the Bewcastle Waste.
At first we could not get a car to take us, but finally the butcher came to the rescue, and said that if we did not mind the car in which he sent round the meat, he would have it very thoroughly cleaned. It was easily convertible into a sort of motor-waggonette, to hold six people, and was really quite comfortable. The only drawback was that we caused great disappointment to all the dogs of the villages we went through. They recognized the front of the vehicle, and the driver, and came up wagging their tails, to receive a nasty shock on finding that the contents of the rear portion were human beings and not meat.
It was a lovely run; past the ruin of Triermain Castle, then to Askerton Castle, a beautiful old Border fortification, which we stopped and viewed, copying down two inscriptions, scratched, one on the lead of the roof, and the other on the staircase. The first was:
"Geo Taylr Novb 9th, 1745
the day that the rebels
Came to the Border."
The other was:
"The familie Spoeller
refuge from to War
1914."
This reminds me of a Border story, connected with Bewcastle, of a man, a "rough customer," who wanted to claim kinship with a Scotsman, declaring that he was himself a "Border Scot." "Gude faith, I dinna doubt it," said the true Scot; "the coarsest part of the cloth is aye at the border."
On we went, across the Bewcastle Waste, wild and barren, till Bewcastle itself came into view, with its church, its castle, and a few houses.
The church and castle are built on the site of a Roman fort standing above the Kirkbeck Burn.
"Bueth's Castle" is the grimmest old ruin I ever saw, with bare walls standing up in forbidding sternness.
The church is said to date back to the Conquest. There are four holes in the wall, through which the dwellers in the castle used to keep watch against their enemies. It had till lately shown the beautiful grey stone inside, but when we were there it had just been distempered buff colour all over—stone walls, stone columns, font, and all! Fortunately they had omitted to distemper the curiously carved eighteenth-century tombstones in the churchyard, and the Runic Cross!
This last is a magnificent example of early Christian art amongst the Anglo-Saxons, with a runic inscription which has been translated thus:
"This slender sign of victory set up
Hwaetred, Wothgaer, Olw-wolthu,
to Alcfrith, a king and son of
Oswy. Pray for ..."
There are figures of Jesus Christ and of St. John the Baptist; and also of King Alcfrith, whom it commemorates, holding a hawk. He is said to have died of the yellow plague in 664 A.D.
There is very beautiful ornamental work on the other three sides; vines, with birds and squirrels in amongst the leaves, and elaborate interlacing fret.
Three of us walked back from Bewcastle by the Maiden Way; we kept losing the way and finding it again; but we struck all the landmarks, and it finally brought us out, "according to plan," just above Birdoswald. We passed Side Fell, the highest point hereabouts, and came to the Beacon, where the ruins of what was formerly supposed to be a Roman watch-tower are quite unmistakable. In Dr. Bruce's third edition there is a lovely picture of it, with, prominently in the foreground, "a very human incident," as the newspapers love to say. A brave, top-hatted cavalier, with umbrella raised high above his head, is defending a clinging companion in crinoline skirts from three meek-looking cows, whose tails are curved like fish-hooks over their backs! What a romance lies hidden there! When I saw it, I felt how much I had failed in not peopling the solitudes of the Wall in my pictures! But then, to me, the loneliness is half the charm, and three-quarters of the character. We crossed Spadeadam Waste—such a fascinating name, which takes us back to the very gates of Eden!—and we came to Spadeadam farm-house, where an adamantine old lady in a sunbonnet refused our appeal for milk or tea. Haymaking was in full swing, and she really had more than she could do already, I am sure. Then we crossed the King Water, by stepping-stones, and over the top of the next hill Gilsland came into view.
CONCLUSION
And so I must take leave of the Wall; and Wall must make its exit from this little stage.
"Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so,
And, being done, thus Wall away doth go."
(Midsummer Night's Dream.)
It has not been possible within the limits of this book to say all I should have liked.
The romance of the Museums I have left untouched, with their pathetic relics of the loves, the vanities, the hopes and fears, the sufferings, and the victories of the great people who colonized our land so many years ago.
There is abundant proof that there was some measure of family life enjoyed by the Romans on the wild outposts of the Wall.
The officers had their wives with them; children were born (and lost); sorrowing husbands have left memorials to their wives; disconsolate wives lament, on stone, their husbands.
And trinkets there are in plenty: gold, and silver, and bronze, inlaid with stones; and beautiful enamel work. At Chesters there is a jet ring inscribed with a monogram, and the legend:
QVIS · SEPA · MEVM · ET · TVVM · DVRANTE · VITA
"Who shall separate me and thee during life?"
Has mankind changed much in eighteen hundred years?
Only one definitely Christian inscription has been found, and that is a British tombstone.
Nearly all the inscribed stones show signs of having been purposely smashed; possibly by "Christian" Britons, who thought later that by that means they were doing God service.
It is so much easier to smash stones than to live the Christian life! No doubt the smashing was sometimes a symbolic act, to indicate the renunciation of the old pagan habits, and to remove temptation.
I was very sorry to take leave of the Wall; perhaps even more sorry to take leave of the kindly friends I had made. I met with many instances of the blunt outspokenness of the northern character, but never with a spark of rudeness nor unpleasant familiarity.
As I travelled south in the train, I remembered what Hutton has said: that the Wall "would exhibit its proud head many thousand years"; but that the mounds of the Vallum, "being native earth, would continue to the last trump."
Is this indeed so? Is it, for example, possible that the bunkers on the golf-links I was then passing are the most enduring portion of our civilization? Will pilgrims in the far distant future travel hundreds and thousands of miles to see these, our only contemporary "earth-works," as to a shrine, wondering what great chiefs are buried under them? It might be so, if "native earth" were indeed the most enduring form of construction. But I beg leave to doubt it.
Back in London, it seemed cold and dull at first. I missed the freedom of the Wall, where every one I met had said, "It's a gran' day, the day," as naturally as they had smiled as we passed each other.
Ah! but London has a kind heart too, though circumstances prevent her from wearing it on her sleeve. Many have testified to this in the past, and will testify to it in the future. And therefore in London also there is much that we may surely count amongst the "things that endure."
Old Londinium, older than the Romans, who colonized and fortified but did not found her, is dear to us, in spite of all her fog and smoke and turmoil, for of her also it is true that
"Only the fashion of the soul remains."
[Transcriber's note: the source book's map was scanned in four sections, being too large to scan in one piece. The four sections are from the west coast of Scotland to the east coast. Each illustration can be clicked on to see its matching larger version.]
Map of Hadrian's Wall (Section 1)
Map of Hadrian's Wall (Section 2)
Map of Hadrian's Wall (Section 3)
Map of Hadrian's Wall (Section 4)
INDEX
Æsica (Great Chesters), xix, 29, 142, 143-5.
Agricola, 2, 3, 9-13, 17, 18, 77, 107, 153, 154, 180, 227, 230.
Allectus, 16.
Allolee, 145.
AMBOGLANNA (Birdoswald), xviii, xix, 29, 30, 86, 166-9.
"Amphitheatre" at House-steads, 116, 122.
Antoninus (son of Severus), 15.
Apple-tree turret, 169.
Archæologia Æliana, xvi.
Askerton Castle, 235.
Augustus, 7.
Aulus Platorius Nepos, 14, 21.
Banks, village of, xviii, xix, 169, 171.
Barcombe Hill, 21, 111, 126, 227.
Bardon Mill, xix.
Barracks in forts, 92, 122, 141.
Basalt rock, 105, 112, 126, 127, 152.
Batavians, cohort of, 29, 107.
Bath-house at Chesters, 95.
Baths in forts, 93.
Beaumont, 204.
Beck, 186.
Berm, or safety platform, 19, 34.
Bewcastle, 154, 234-8; Cross, 237.
Birdoswald, viii, xvi, xviii, 29, 30, 109, 154, 164.
Black Carts Farm, 102.
Blackgate Museum, Newcastle, 45, 158.
Blair, Mr. Robert, xvi.
Bloody Gap, 139.
Bogle Hole, 139.
BORCOVICIUM, xvi, xix, 28, 29, 116, 119-124.
Bosanquet, Professor, 117, 121.
Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni, 9.
Bowness, xix, 24, 181, 219-223.
Brewis, Mr. Parker, vii.
Bridge, Roman, at Chesters, xvi, 72, 74-80, 97; at Corbridge, 78; at Newcastle, 42; over Irthing, viii-x.
Brigantes, 9.
Britannicus, 8.
Broomlee Lough, 115, 124, 126.
Bruce, Dr. Collingwood, v, xi, xv, 25, 40, 56, 74, 80, 92, 117, 140, 151, 158, 180, 198, 204, 223, 237.
Brunstock Park, 192.
Brunton House, 73.
Burnhead, 142.
Burtholme family, 173; village, 179.
Byker Bridge, 39; Hill, 40, 42.
Caedwallon, 68.
Caligula, 7.
Cambeck Hill, 185.
Camden, the antiquary, 22, 25, 28, 111, 112, 115, 221.
Camp, Roman, 142.
Caracalla, 15.
Caratacus, or Caradoc, 8.
Carausius, 16.
Carlisle, xiv, xix, 12, 18, 154, 196-7.
Carlisle, Lord, quoted, 168.
Carraw, 107.
Carr Hill, 63.
Carvoran, xviii, 25, 29, 30, 112, 114, 153.
Cassivelaunus, British king, 6.
Castle Nick, 127.
Castles: Askerton, 235; Haughton, 98; at Sewingshields, 115; Thirlwall, xviii, xix, 155; Triermain, 235.
Causeways of Vallum, 34-37, 62, 145.
Centurial Stones, 25, 55, 109, 158, 161, 187.
Chapel of the Standards, vii, 89.
Chapel House, 158.
Chesterholm, 29, 30, 126, 226.
Chesters, Great, 29; Halton, 29; Walwick, xviii, 29, 84.
Chives, 150.
CILURNUM (Walwick Chesters), xviii, xix, 29, 82, 84-97, 154.
Claudius, 7.
Clayton, Mr. John, v, xv, 76, 84, 140.
Cockmount Hill, 145.
Cogidumnus, King, 8.
Cold Knuckles, 131.
Collingwood, Mr. R. G., vi, xii.
Collingwood, Mr. W. G., vi, xvi.
Commodus, Emperor, 15.
CONDERCUM (Benwell Hill), 29, 44-47.
Constantine, Emperor, 16, 103.
Corbridge, xvii, 12, 18, 53, 61, 78, 229.
Cornovii, cohort of, 29.
CORSTOPITUM, 12, 95, 154, 229-232, 233.
Coventina, water-goddess, 106.
Crag Lough, 126.
Craggle Hill, 174.
Craster, Dr. H. H. E., 232.
Crosby, 188.
Cross Fell, 148.
Cuddy's Crag, 125.
Cumrenton, 184.
Cunobelin, British king, 7.
Cymbeline, 7.
Dalmatians, cohort of, 29.
Denton Burn, 47.
Denton, East, 47.
Denton Hall, 48.
Diocletian, Emperor, 16.
Domitian, Emperor, 12, 13, 154.
Dooven Foot, 156.
Dovecote, 181.
Draw-dykes Castle, 193.
East Denton, 47.
East Wallhouses, 59.
Eden, River, 25, 195-200, 221.
Edges Green, 136.
Edwin, King of Northumbria, 147.
Emperor-worship, 89-90.
Erdeswick, Samson, 25.
Erinus Alpinus, 94.
Errington Arms, 65.
Fairclough, H. Rushton, quoted, 17.
Far-Glow, 156.
Faustinus, Consul, 170.
Flavius Carantinus, 70.
Flowers along the Wall, 61, 66, 67, 68, 73, 94, 103, 140, 179, 182.
Forts on the Wall, list of, xxv.
Foul Town, 158.
Fourstones, xix.
Forster, Mr. R. H., 232.
Frixagi (Frisii), cohort of, 29.
Gap, 158.
Gateways of forts, 85-88, 120, 122, 143.
Gauls, cohort of, 29.
George Inn, Chollerford, xvii, 80-83, 98.
Giant's Grave, 55.
Gibson, Mr. J. P., 141, 147, 160, 169.
Gilsland, x, xviii, xix, 111, 154, 158-162, 234, 238.
Glasson, 215.
Granaries, at Chesters, 91; at Housesteads, 120; at Corstopitum, 230; at Birdoswald, 167.
Greenlee Lough, 126.
Green Slack, 138.
Grinsdale, 198-201.
Hadrian, builder of the Wall, 2, 14, 18-21, 76, 158, 169, 228; constructor of the Vallum, 20, 33; Bridge over the Tyne at Newcastle, 42.
Hadrian Street, Wallsend, 40, 42.
Halton Chesters, 29, 63; Shields, 63; Tower, 63.
Haltwhistle Burn, xviii, 141; Fort, 141.
Handbook, Dr. Bruce's, see under Bruce.
Harrow's Scar mile-castle, 164, 169.
Haughton Castle, 98.
Haverfield, Professor, 166, 184, 190, 232.
Haydon Bridge, xix, 44, 49, 111.
Headswood, 186.
Heavenfield, 69.
Heddon-on-the-Wall, 52.
Hen Gap, 103.
Hexham, xix, 71, 101, 107, 232.
High House turret, 169.
High Wall Houses, 61.
Hodgson, Mr. and Mrs. T. H., xvi, 166, 184, 190, 192.
Honorius, 17.
Horsley, 53.
Hotbank, 126.
Housesteads, xviii, 29, 30, 116; Mile-castle, 124.
Humshaugh, xvii.