LVGVVALVM. Carlisle.
At the gates are guard-houses of stone, built by Cromwell from the demolished cathedral; and in the middle of the market-place, a fort with four bastions, roofed like a house, with holes for the gunners to shoot out at with small arms. At the south-east end of the city is a citadel built by Henry VIII. as is plain from its conformity to Deal, Walmer, &c. In levelling the ground of the fish-market they found many coins, which we saw in Mr. Goodman’s hands: he has an altar found in the river Irthing, by the Picts wall: also in Mr. Stanwix’s summer-house wall is an inscription of the sixth legion, and a pretty altar, but the inscription worn out. Fragments of Roman squared stones appear in every quarter of the city, and several square wells in the streets, of Roman workmanship. A great quantity of Roman coin dug up under St. Cuthbert’s church. Probably the city stood chiefly on that spot where the castle now is, as the highest ground, but did not reach so far eastward as the present city. One may walk about the walls of this city, as at Chester: there was a double ditch round it.
There are many hollowed stones found hereabouts, much like the marble mortars of apothecaries, with a notch in them. I take them to be the hand-mills of the Roman soldiers, wherein they ground their corn with a stone, and sometimes perhaps became their urns; making their chief instrument in sustentation of life, their inseparable companion in death.
This is a very pleasant and fertile country, rendered more sightly to us by passing so long through the mountainous stoney tracts of Lancashire, Westmorland, and Cumberland. About this country we observe many mud-wall houses, thatched with flat sods or hassocks shaved off the moors; which I suppose the old British custom continued. Here too they use the little carts, as about Kendal.
We saw, in Mr. Gilpin’s hands, a silver Otho, found here; reverse, SECVRITAS R. P. also a middle brass of C. Marius; reverse, VICTORIA CIMBRICA: together with many more, which his father collected. In the cathedral are many remains of the tombs of bishops, I suppose, between the pillars of the choir; every one of which was a little chapel, but now pulled in pieces. A large brass of bishop Bell is left in the choir. The bottom of the steeple, and the west end of what remains of the structure, is of William Rufus’s time: the choir is later.
The road to Bramton is manifestly Roman, by reason of its straightness; and in two places, as I walked up the first hill, I saw the original, made of a bed of stone: it goes precisely south-east; and looking towards Carlisle, I saw it passed through the citadel, and along a narrow street; so through the cathedral to the castle-gate; all in a strait line. To the castle-gate the road over the river Eden came: that from the wall on the west came to the same point; into which falls that from castrum exploratorum.
The VALLVM.
The military virtue of the Romans outlived the spirit of their learning, or excelled it, seeing there is no author that deservedly celebrates this stupendous work of theirs in Britain: they just mention it: no coins struck upon it. I am not afraid to set it in competition with the wall of China, which necessarily occurs to our thoughts upon this occasion: that we readily acknowledge to be a structure of greater bulk and length, which we esteem the least part of the wonder in ours: the Romans intended no more, by their walls around their forts and castles than to prevent a sudden surprise: their strength lay in a living arm and head: in the open field they never refused fighting, without much regard to opposite numbers; the additional security of a little wall was all they asked, against emergencies.
Therefore the beauty and the contrivance of this wall consisted mostly in the admirable disposition of the garrisons upon it, at such proper stations, distance, strength and method, that even in times of profound peace, as well as war, a few hands were sufficient to defend it against a most bold and daring people, redundant in numbers, strong and hardy in body, fierce in manners, as were the old North Britons, who refused subjection and a polite life.
The Romans, tired out with the untractable disposition of these people, whose country they judged not worth while wholly to conquer, resolved to quit their strengths northward, and content themselves with the desirable part of Britain, and, by one of the greatest works they ever did, seclude the Caledonians, and immortalise their own name by an inexhaustible fund of monuments, for posterity to admire. These people, who had the true spirit of military discipline, did not lie idle under arms, but were ever at work, even whilst they lay pro castris; making and repairing public roads; setting up milliary pillars; building and repairing castles, cities, temples, and palaces; erecting altars, inscriptions; striking medals, and the like works, which we here find in such surprising quantities.
If we consider the great numbers of their works now to be seen, more that have been lost and destroyed, or put into new buildings of our own, most that are still left for future times to rake out of their vestiges, we may entertain a true notion of their genius, which subdued the fiercest and most populous nations in the world. Worthily may we propose them for examples of virtue and public spirit. This is no little use and advantage of disquisitions of this sort.
Alliances, treaties, and negotiations, are of small value to a nation always in arms, and ready to meet an injurious enemy; who strengthen, fortify, and enrich themselves at home, protect the people, and make the expences of government sit easy upon them; encourage industry, frugality, temperance, virtue; a few plain easy laws; administer justice with expedition, and without expence; but especially encourage a due sense of religion and morality: and how much easier and more effectually that is to be done now, than possibly could be done by the Romans, will appear notorious, when we consider, that under the Christian dispensation we make a much stronger impression on the hearts and minds of people, than before: the full certainty, which all reasonable consciences must now have, of a future retribution and account to be made before an omniscient judge, lays an infinitely greater restraint on our actions, than possibly can be had from the terror of rods and axes.
The Roman wall is called by the people Pights wall, with a guttural pronunciation, which we of the south cannot imitate; and which the Romans called Picti; but not from any fancied painting of their bodies, though it gave a handle to it.
At Stanwick, which hence has its name, just over-against Carlisle beyond the river, I saw the ditch very plain: the blacksmith there, told me he had taken up many of the stones of the foundation of the wall: it passes the river over-against Carlisle castle. At Stanwick was an arched gate through the wall: Mr. Goodman showed us a cornelian intaglia found there, of Jupiter sitting. I followed the wall to Taraby, where, a little beyond, it makes an angle, going more south-east; so to Draw-dikes, which was a fort, about 100 foot square: it is on the edge of the meadows, and moist in situation. Here I found an inscription upon the house-wall.
In building the wall, I observed evidently, the intent of the projectors was to conduct it, all along, upon the northern edge of the high ground, as near as might be. All about Carlisle, this most noble monument of Roman power and policy is pulled up; first, perhaps, by William Rufus, when he built the castle; then for the cathedral: and I suppose all the church walls of the city, and houses of it, and the villages near it, are of the pillage: hence most of the churches along the wall are set upon it, for the convenience of having stone near at hand, ready cut. The farmers and inhabitants are daily taking away the small remains.
The track of the ditch on the north side of the wall is visible enough all the way, though sometimes corn grows in it. The line where the wall stood, is generally a foot-path. The valley between the end of the wall at Stanwick, and the castle of Carlisle, is not above 300 yards broad, and is guarded too by the stream of the river Cauda. Westward, on the south side of the river Eden, it went toward Drumburgh, and ended at Boulness. Why the Romans carried it so far, on the south side the bay, was because of its being a flat shore, where an enemy might land in boats. It goes up the hill at Newton, from Carlisle; and so marches in a strait line up the next hill, to Beaumont, one of the old forts. All this way it is turned into a street: the ridge of the wall is the foundation of it, as a pavement; the ditch pretty much filled up by rubbish. Mr. Goodman says, he remembers two forts near Carlisle, now demolished, and ploughed over; one on the north side the river; the other on the south. I cannot suppose the stone work of the wall went across the meadow; rather a wood work with towers, which made up the communication between the two ends of the wall, over the river.
The fort on the north side of the river was on the high plat of ground, between the road up to Stanwick, and the wall. At the place where the ditch ends over the river, has been some little fortification work; and thereabouts is a pretty little spring, faced with stone, and having a stone bason. Hitherto the wall was carried; because directly opposite to the union of the Cauda and Eden rivers, running close under the bank; and directly opposite to the western steep of Carlisle castle, which was the Roman castrum, but somewhat larger than this castle of William Rufus: perhaps it took in most of the present city. In a tower of the walls of Carlisle castle, on the outside, between it and the Irish gate, I saw a Roman carving of a boar, which was the cognisance of the legion here in garrison, and that built it.
We visited Scaleby castle, Mr. Gilpin’s seat, about half a mile from the wall, and built of its stones. This was a strong place with a circular mote, well beset with wood, which is not very common hereabouts. In the garden we copied many Roman altars: they showed us two Roman shoes, found in the bog hereabouts. The church too of this place was built out of the wall. Mr. Gilpin says, in taking up the foundation of the wall at a boggy place, they found a frame of oak timber underneath, very firm.
From hence, over a most dismal boggy moor, an uncultivated desert, we travelled to Netherby. We passed by a Roman fort upon the river Leven, where antiquities have been found. They tell us, that, for sixty miles further up northward, there is scarce a house or tree to be seen, all the way. This was the march, or bound, between the two kingdoms. The land might be drained and cultivated, and how much a greater argument of national prudence would it be to have it done, by those we transport to America!
The foundations of the Roman castrum at Netherby appear round the house, or present castle: it stood on an eminence near the river. Many antiquities are here dug up every day. The foundations of houses, and the streets, are visible. They pretend, most of the space between the vallum and ditch is vaulted. A little lower down has been some monumental edifice, or burial-place, where they find many urns and sepulchral antiquities.
In the garden here, are some altars; and a carving of a female head, in a lion’s skin; I suppose, Omphale; and an admirable carving of a Genius sacrificing. We saw a gold Nero found here: a cornelian with a woman’s head, flowing hair. This valley by the river side is very good land, with some shadow of Nature’s beautiful face left; but every where else about us, is the most melancholy dreary view I ever beheld, and as the back-door of creation; here and there a castellate house by the river, whither at night the cattle are all driven for security from the borderers: as for the houses of the cottagers, they are mean beyond imagination; made of mud, and thatched with turf, without windows, only one story; the people almost naked.
We returned through Longton, a market-town, whose streets are wholly composed of such kind of structure: the piles of turf for firing are generally as large and as handsome as the houses.
After this excursion northward, we set out from Carlisle eastward, withinside of the Roman vallum. Warwick, thought a Roman station, upon the river Eden, pleasantly seated in a little woody valley. We left the Roman road going strait from the citadel of Carlisle to Petrianis. To the right a little is Corby castle, where are many monuments of antiquity preserved; as likewise at Caercaroc near it.
Upon the river Gelt, a little before we came to Bramton, we went up the river to see a Roman inscription, cut upon the natural rock; a most odd and melancholy place: the river runs through a canal of rock all the way. Upon the great ridge of fells coming hither from Cross fell by Penrith, are many circles of stones, and circular banks of earth, the temples of the Druids of the patriarchal mode. There are likewise square works set round with stones, which were their places of judicature.
Beyond Bramton, just over the town, is a keep ditched about, called the Mount, on the top of a hill. Hence to Thirlwal castle we rode upon the foundation of the wall, the river Irthing accompanying us. We visited Knaworth castle. Near here is a great house of the Howard family, built of stone, and castellated: among many family pictures, the great earl of Arundel’s, the reviver of learned curiosity among us; a library once well stored with books and manuscripts: here is the famous Glassonbury-abbey book, or rather screen, for it is big enough; an account of the saints buried in that place. In the garden are many altars and inscriptions: I copied all those tolerably fair: with much regret I saw these noble monuments quite neglected and exposed; some cut in half to make gate-posts. A fine park here, and much old timber. The country hereabouts good land and pleasant. Above the house upon a hill, a circular work double trenched; the outer ditch broadest.
About Thirlwall we rode along the side of the wall: here was a gate through the wall, for the great Roman road called Madan-way. The name Thirlwal retains a memory of the gate here; foramen: we use it now to drill, and nostrill. All the fences of the inclosures, the houses, church, and Thirlwal castle, built out of the ravage of the wall. At the castle was a head of Roman carved work, which they have put into the blind wall of a little ale-house.
VOREDA. Caer Voran.
A little upon the south side of the wall was a great Roman city and castle. We traversed the stately ruins: it stood on a piece of high ground, about 400 foot square; had a wall and ditch; vestiges of houses and buildings all over, within and without. We observed the Madan-way coming over the fells from the south, where it passes by a work, or labyrinth, called Julian’s bower. We saw too the Roman road passing eastward along the wall. The country hereabouts is a wild moory bog; and the wall itself climbs all along a crag, and is set upon the southern edge of it; the steepness of the cliff northward performing the part of a foss. Near Haltwistle is Baliol castle, corruptly Belister castle, said to be founded by a king of Scotland.
I suppose this wall, built by Severus, is generally set upon the same track as Hadrian’s wall or vallum of earth was; for, no doubt, they then chose the most proper ground: but there is a vallum and ditch all the way accompanying the wall, and on the south side of it; and likewise studiously chusing the southern declivity of rising ground. I observe too the vallum is always to the north. It is surprising, that people should fancy this to be Hadrian’s vallum: it might possibly be Hadrian’s work, but must be called the line of contravallation; for, in my judgement, the true intent both of Hadrian’s vallum and Severus’s wall was, in effect, to make a camp extending across the kingdom; consequently was fortified both ways, north and south: at present the wall was the north side of it; that called Hadrian’s work, the south side of it: hence we may well suppose all the ground of this long camp, comprehended between the wall and the southern rampire, was the property of the soldiery that guarded the wall.
I remarked, that where the wall passes over a little rivulet, the foundation of it is laid with broad, flat stones, square, having intervals between, sufficiently large for the passage of the water.
At Haltwistle I got an altar of, DEO SOLI INVICTO. We took the wall again at Chester on the Wall, about two miles east from Caer voran, Wall town, lying between the Roman way paved with broad stones, which led us over the low boggy ground up to the castle. It is a square of 400 foot close to the wall, which makes one side of it; 350 foot less than those on the east and west. Great marks of buildings all over it, and even side-walls of houses left. At the south entrance were two round towers within side, and the cheeks of the gates. Last year one of the iron hinges taken away. All around this castle were houses built. An altar lies in the fields a little way off, but quite obliterated.
The Picts wall continues still on the southern verge of the cliff. Eastward hence we saw, here and there, the vestiges of the square towers, built on the inside of the Wall, and close to it: that called Hadrian’s ditch runs still on the southern verge of the hill, with a large vallum on the north.
We came again upon the Roman road, which goes on the inside of the wall, but not near it, chusing the best ground and shortest cut all the way through this boggy waste country. Upon it is the compass of an inn, or little station for lodging of travellers or soldiers. This road continues very strait and bold to Little Chester, the next station, on a brook, and somewhat better land. A mile before we came to it, on a hill stands a great stone, and a little one, called the Mare and Foal. A little west of that, over-against Chester, is a barrow which Mr. Warburton dug through, and found bits of urns, ashes, and other like marks of its being British. A little farther westward is a large group of British barrows.
Before we come to Little Chester is a most noble column, or milestone, set upon the road: it is of a large bulk and height, with an inscription, but only not quite defaced. Mr. Gale thought he could read TVNG. upon it: it is the finest stone of this sort I have seen, and would have informed us who made the road.
LITTLE CHESTER.
TAB. LXXV.We saw the castrum here, of a square figure, hanging on a precipice over a little river on the south side of the Roman road, and at some distance from the Wall: it had been walled about, as others: great vestigia of buildings, altars, carved stones and antiquities innumerable, have been found here, but now dispersed and gone. We saw the mouths of vaults with great stones lying over them. The fences of the pastures are made of the stones of the castle-wall. The man who lives here showed us a few fragments of Roman work; a pine-apple, which had been a pinacle on the top of a circular tholus; a piece of an inscription within a civic garland, finely cut; a brick, with LEG. VI. V. He has found many coins; but his children threw them away.
In a corner of a field below, by the side of the brook, and as the military way turns, up the hill, is another such milliary stone, but no inscription legible.
The moory country hereabouts has coal under it. Upon the tops of the hills are several cairns, or sepulchral heaps of stones, made by the old Britons.
A little eastward of Great Chester, where the ditch ends, at the bottom of a cliff, we saw the foundation of the Wall, which the country people are digging up for building: we measured the true breadth of it, just seven Roman feet.
HOUSESTEEDS.
TAB. LXXVI.The next station we visited, about two miles from the former, and by the Wall, is deservedly called Housesteeds, from the vestigia of the houses therein, which are as easy to be seen and distinguished as if ruined but yesterday. Approaching the farmer’s house there, I saw a mill or two, i. e. the recipient stones of the hand-mills which the Roman soldiers used to grind their corn with; likewise some tops of altars: over the door of the house, a large carved stone, but defaced. Going a little further, in a corner of a dry wall is a large stone that has been curiously cut, but now broken and much injured: three figures in it, in high relievo; two with sacrificing cups in their hands: I believe it has belonged to some temple, and means the Genii of three cities: it is in my learned friend Mr. Horsley’s 20th table, but poorly represented: they seem to stand before steps. Near it, in the wall, is the bottom part of a very large altar, or pedestal of a pillar, a yard square: near that a long carved stone, somewhat like the shaft of our later crosses.
Above the house, upon the Picts wall is an altar; the legend gone. As for fragments of pillars, or rollers, as they call them, they lie scattered all over the place. A large part of a Doric capital lies by the door, consisting of two thori, or swelled mouldings in architectonic language.
But when we were led lower down into the meadow, we were surprised with the august scene of Romano-British antiquities, in the most neglected condition: a dozen most beautiful and large altars; as many fine basso relievo’s, nearly as big as the life, all tumbled in a wet meadow by a wall side, or one on the top of another, to make up the wall of the close: the basso relievo’s, some with their heads down the hill; particularly an admirable image of Victory, both arms knocked off: one large soldier, a sepulchral stone, with his short sword hanging at his right side, the man told us, was condemned to make a pig-trough on; but some gentlemen, full timely, with a small sum, for the present reprieved him: many soldiers with heads broke off; mutilated by the middle: three ladies sitting close together, with globes in their hands; their heads all gone.
Mr. Gale and I laboured hard at the inscriptions, and made out what we could of them under all disadvantages. Along the same wall, as we walked on further, we found more altars and carved stones of various sorts: but at length the farmer carried us up to a knoll in the middle of the meadow called Chapel-steed, where undoubtedly was the Roman temple: there we saw three or four most beautiful altars; and a little further, under another wall, a pretty sepulchral carving of an old soldier’s upper part in a niche.
With great regret we left the place, deserving to be accounted the Tadmor of Britain. The inscriptions being mostly of the captains of the first cohort of the Tungrians, shows they were chiefly stationed here; and then they had piety enough generally to erect such an altar, when they took possession of their post.
We passed through Newborough. Just before the church, on the middle of the street, stands an altar; but the legend vanished. I am informed, that where the Roman wall passes the north Tyne, it is by a wonderful bridge of great art, made with very large stones linked together with iron cramps, fastened with molten lead.
We do not wonder at the great quantity of antiquities here to be seen, when all the workmen of the Romans were generally got into Britain: as is evident from the Panegyrist to Maximian, sub finem.
Devotissima civitas Heduorum ex hac Britannicæ facultate victoriæ plurimos quibus illæ provinciæ redundabant, accepit artifices, et nunc extructione veterum domorum, et refectione operum publicorum et templorum instauratione resurgit.
Two remarks are naturally inferred from this testimony. 1. How fond the Romans were of this island; whence the cities, castles, roads, temples, altars, sculptures, and in general the whole face of the country here, vastly exceeded that of the continent. 2. When I returned home from this journey, and compared my drawings of the antiquities here exhibited, taken from the things themselves, with those that have been published before or since, by Mr. Alexander Gordon, or Mr. Horsley; it grieved me that, for want of a tolerable skill in design, they have given us such poor and wretched pictures of these elegant antiquities; so that the reader may not wonder when he views them both together: and indeed it gives foreigners a mean idea of the Roman works in our island; but very injuriously. I have therefore caused a good many of these to be engraven, to show the just difference.
At Chesters an admirably carved stone was dug up lately, very large: the tenant of the farm caused it to be planed and turned into a grave-stone for himself; and it is now laid over him at the parish church.
HEXAM.
Hexham has a fine appearance every way; stands on a hill in a pleasant woody vale by the river Tyne; once a bishop’s see: the church dedicate to St. Andrew by the great Wilfred, who was the occasion of bringing my native country of Mercia to embrace christianity: he founded the priory of St. Leonard’s, between Stamford and Uffington, the first of the kingdom of Mercia: part of the church of his building remains, though turned into a barn: he built St. Peter’s church in Stamford, the first church there.
By Mr. Gale’s persuasion I wrote the whole primordia of Stamford, which I have by me. At Tickencote, hard by, is the most venerable church antiquity extant, the intire oratory of prince Peada, who founded Peterborough abbey. But return we to Hexam.
The cathedral is a large, lofty structure; but the body or west end, and the two towers, are intirely demolished: it was collegiate: a great building, called the College. Between it and the church are cloisters, now a garden. In the choir two knightly monuments of stone cross-legged; by the arms on their shields, Vernon and Umfrevile; they either went a warfare into the Holy Land, or vowed it: a tomb of one of the Northumbrian kings: two oratories over sepultures unknown: a tomb of a woman with a veil over her eyes.
Here has been much old-fashioned painting, upon wainscot and stucco, of bishops, saints, kings and queens; but, to the loss of history, defaced. This town was undoubtedly Roman. We judged the castrum was where the castellated building now stands, east of the market-place; which is the brow of a hill, and has a good prospect. The market-place, which is a square, lies between this and the cathedral.
On the site of the cathedral once stood a Roman temple. Digging for a foundation of a buttress to be built on the west side of the steeple, they opened a vault, which descends under the church to a subterraneous oratory, like that under the cupola of St. Peter’s at Rome, called limina apostolorum. Here I suppose were kept the reliques of saints. This place is built out of the ruins of the temple. Over the inward entrance to the vault is laid flat a fine Roman inscription; the report of which led us down thither, though the passage to it was as bad as that of Poole’s hole, Derbyshire. We found it a noble large stone of the emperors Pertinax and Aurelius: we could not transcribe the whole, because part of it is still within the wall. Over the next door lower down, a large stone is set perpendicular, and half of it cut away, in nature of an arch: the mouldings likewise chopped off; the whole so defaced, that nothing to any purpose could be made out of it, all the words being imperfect. Upon the walls of the crypt we saw many Roman fragments of mouldings, and carved work, with bits of fluted and cabled pilasters.
In searching about the oratory we found a very fine altar almost intire, laid sideways into the very foundation. We dug away the earth and bones underneath, and discovered thereby a new Legatus Augusti Q. Calpurnius Concessinius; and a new troop of horse in Britain, of which he was the captain, the equites Cæsareani Corionototarum.
The ground-plot of this town is much like that of Caster in Lincolnshire; four streets going diagonally from the angles of the market-place. Some silver and other Roman coins were found not long since near the church. This church is a very venerable and noble Saxon structure, and may serve for a specimen of the manner of raising those fabrics at that time of day. The workmen were but lately then brought from Rome, by the great Benedict bishop of Weremouth, who may truly be called the Arundel of that time: he was a nobleman of Northumberland, minister to king Oswy: he travelled to Rome twice, some say five times; and brought home a fine collection of books, of which the venerable Bede made so good use: he also brought hither architects and artificers in building, carving, painting on glass, and the like; so injurious are the notions of some modern antiquaries, who think we had no stone buildings before the Norman kings.
Our Wilfred was likewise a great genius: he travelled first to Rome in Benedict’s retinue: he was a great promoter of building cathedrals and religious houses: besides this of Hexam, he rebuilt that of York, before raised by Paulinus: he built a cathedral in the old Roman city of Cambodunum, Almondbury, in Yorkshire: he built Rippon cathedral: he had a great hand in founding the cathedrals of Peterborough, Ely, Litchfield, Leicester, and Chichester. He died in a good old age, 12 Oct. anno Dom. 709, in his little monastery at Oundle, Northamptonshire: the room still remains, and the church in ruins, but later than his time.
The Corionototarum, in the inscription, is probably the Coriolopocarium in anonymus Ravennas; as Mr. Gale conjectures: and I add, probably it was the neighbouring Corbridge.
The Roman castle was situate near the present Corbridge westward, and on the northern banks of the river: it is called Corchester. They tell us with some sort of wonder, that it is the richest and best hereabouts for ploughing: they discern not that it is owing to the animal salts left in a place that had been long inhabited. Corbridge is built out of its ruins, which are scattered about there in every house. Before the doors we saw many mills, pieces of shafts of pillars, capitals, bases, many pieces of basso relievo, and carvings: a fine large picture of Victory, holding a great parma, which belonged to the horse: two carvings of lions tearing bulls; their heads knocked off: several bits of inscriptions. The foot of the cross in the market-place is an intire Roman altar, of a large size; the inscription worn out: on one side, the head of a goat; a pitcher on the other. In the outer wall of the chancel is a fragment of the fourth cohort of the second legion. In the church-yard is the remarkable altar, in Greek character, to the Tyrian Hercules: another imperfect one set up for a grave-stone.
In Mr. Tod’s house a fragment of a most noble inscription of the emperor M. Aurelius, cut in very large and handsome letters: the date of the tribunicia potestas lost. I have endeavoured to do justice to these elegant sculptures; whereas they are generally by others so very ill done, as to be disgraceful both to Romans, and to Britons, and to antiquity in general.
Over the door of a house, is a poor carving of a Northumbrian king, with a sceptre in his hand, of the same style as their coins. There is a fine bridge here over the river. From hence we travelled all along upon the Roman road, on the northern banks of the Tyne, to Newcastle. We saw Prudhoe castle on the other side of the river, standing on an eminence; and a green mount, keep or tumulus, by the church of Ryton. In the choir upon the ground lies the sepulchral monument of the founder, probably; a lion at his feet; in his hands a square piece like a book, with an eagle upon it.
At Newburn, as we passed, I saw a stone over a stable-door, next to the sign of the boat; a tablet of the Roman fashion, ansated, cut in, but the inscription worn out, as being exposed to the weather over the river side.
The Roman wall leaves the common road about a mile east of Newburn, and passes northward to recover the northern edge of the high ground; the counter-guard ditch, called Hadrian’s, accompanying it pari passu. I saw some more carved stones at Newburn, not worth reciting.
We leave Benwell on our right hand, a Roman station. The road two or three miles west of Newcastle is very broad and strait, and enters the west gate directly.
At East Denton, three miles west of Newcastle, is an inscription, in a stable-wall, of the eighth cohort of the second legion.
NEWCASTLE.
This is a very large and populous town. The Picts wall ran along by the north side of the road from Corbridge hither, upon a northern declivity all the way, and in a strait line, on the north side of Newcastle. The present castle was built where the Roman castrum was, and the Roman bridge: that and the walls of the town, the churches, and oldest houses, are raised from the plunder of the Roman wall, which ought to have been preserved as the noblest monument in Europe: it seems to have gone across the present town, from the west gate to Pandon gate; and lately, about the meeting-house, they dug up foundations of it: near Pandon gate was found a seal-ring, now in Mr. Warburton’s possession.
One of the church steeples in this town is of a very ingenious model, the original of one near London bridge. The bridge here is very long, has houses on it: the arches and piers are rather larger than those of London bridge. There is a ground-plot of this town lately made by an artist. In some parts of this country, the ordinary people make a good sort of ale called hather, that is, ling ale, by boiling the tops of the Hather plant to a wort: then I suppose they put wormwood to it, and ferment it.
The coal in this country, and which is universally diffused through it, dips many ways, as the falls of valleys, or ducts of rivers, occasionally divert its primary bent; but the main dip of it is to the south-east. Sometimes here are fissures, or interruptions of some considerable quantity, being coaled strata, stone, and other materials jumbled together: this proves that there has been such a partial disruption of the strata of the earth, as we all along suppose was effected by the Deluge; but not such a hotch-potch, or total mixture and confusion, as others would pretend. It is objected against our scheme, that the fishes in this deluge would be destroyed, and so the renewal of them prevented; for, whether the water of the flood was salt or fresh, or compound, yet this consequence must follow: and indeed I allow it; but I suppose the eggs of these fishes renewed the species, which, like the seeds of plants, would in an immense quantity escape the storm, and provide for the succeeding world. Immense are the quantities of coals transported from this focus of the kingdom; and the trade thereof is a perpetual source of seamen for our navy. They speak very broad; so that, as one walks the streets, one can scarce understand the common people, but are apt to fancy one’s self in a foreign country. The perpetual clouds of smoke hovering in the air makes every thing look black, as at London; and the falling of it down must needs inrich all the ground round about.
It is an old proverb in this country, “As old as Pandon gate;” which shows that there were formerly some ancient remains thereabouts; and I believe the Picts wall went from thence, or rather somewhat above it, i. e. north of it, directly across the town, to West gate; though now the town is enlarged beyond it: nor was the old city, which stood within the Wall, so broad to the east and west, as the present town, but only filled up one of the eminences on which it now stands, having deep valleys with brooks running through them on the sides. Again, it may be inferred, there was a city or castrum at Newcastle, because the Wall on both sides runs in toward a point somewhat this way; otherwise they ought to have carried it on by a straiter line north of the town, and above it at some distance, and where it would better the northern side of a declivity than at present; which was not so very necessary when there was a city or castle here, beside Gabrocentum on the other side of the water. Further, the ferry over the river here would naturally erect a city for travellers northward.
Thus I conceive the intention and management of this famous work, the Roman wall. It reaches 90 Roman miles: this is distributed into nine parts by one of the largest castles, or cities: that interval has six lesser castles. The names of the larger, till I am better informed, are thus: 1. Blatum Bulgium, Boulness; 2. Drumabon, Drumburg castle; 3. Luguvallum, Carlisle; 4. Amboglauna, Castlesteeds; 5. Voreda, Caer Voran; 6. Borcovicus, Housesteeds; 7. Procolitia, Caerhaw brough; 8. Hunnum, Portgate; 9. Vindolana, Ruchester; 10. Banna, Newcastle. The great castles were generally 400 foot square: these held a cohort; the lesser held a maniple, or century: the first consisted of 600, the other of 120 men; for the Romans, in their military affairs especially, reckoned by dozens. Thus the great castles contained a full legion, 6000 men; the lesser, or centuries, a legion and half: the cohorts were the standing garrison; the centuries were the watch: for the Romans did not, as at present, set a single man to watch over an army; but they watched by centuries, whence we have got the word of standing century, without the thing. This I suppose the primary disposition, whence it was provided that two legions and a half should be a sufficient force to render this wall impregnable; and no doubt it was so, as long as the Romans continued here. Further, upon the mouths of the rivers were the fleets and galleys, to prevent the enemy from passing them in their boats, as the Cohors Ælia classica at Tunnocelum, or Tynmouth, as the Notitia Imperii in the last times informs us. As also, of the disposition of the other troops along the Wall, and castles adjacent at that time. Notwithstanding the foregoing method of planting these castles, as the regular and primary intention of the Romans, in such regular distances that they may relieve one another as occasion requires; yet it must be understood with allowance, and accordingly we find it so: they were not so strict as to plant their castles at the alligned distances indiscriminately, for that would be ridiculous; but chose out all along the nearest ground to those distances, which by situation, on hills and the like, best suited the end, for strength, prospect, water, and all other conveniencies: they likewise placed them thinner, or more frequent, as the more or less defensible parts of the Wall required.
I pursued the Picts Wall beyond Pandon gate to Baker-mill hill, two miles off eastward: it is very plain thither from Sandgate mill, both the ridge of the wall, and ditch, the common road going beside it, and many stones in the foundation left: it passes a very deep valley at Euxburn, so ascends the opposite western hill very steep; a rivulet running now in the ditch. Having mounted the hill, a coal-shaft is sunk in the very ditch, and here is a square fort left upon the Wall: some of the foundation of the wall of the fort, and of the Picts Wall, is visible. This is upon an eminence, and sees from Newcastle one way beside Benwell hill beyond it, where was another fort; and to Baker-mill hill the other way, where no doubt was another; but a mill and some farmhouses, standing thereon, have obliterated it. Between here and Baker-mill hill both wall and ditch are very plain, the ditch being deep, with a rivulet running along it: the present common road to Tynmouth passes on its north side. The foundation of the wall is yet intire within the pastures, and a considerable ridge of it is left. Without the ditch is a coal-work lately set on fire, which vomits out smoke continually, like a volcano: many more coal-works all about it. From Baker-mill hill I observe it goes still forward eastward, in a right line, upon the northern verge of the hills, as it has done hitherto, till it comes pretty near the Tyne.TAB. LXXVII. From this hill I took a prospect of its course Newcastle-ward; and the rather, because in all probability, if, not from the fired coal-work at present, yet from some others hereabouts, the country being intirely undermined, it may some time or other sink, and disorder the track of this stately work.
Afterward I pursued the Wall westward out of west gate. As soon as I passed the houses, I espied the ditch on my left hand, and the bank whereon stood the Wall: the common road goes all the way on its north side. I followed it for two miles up the hill by Eswic, going along the road side as before. Many shafts of the coal-mines are sunk upon it. When we are got into the closes, the foot-way goes along that called Adrian’s ditch; both bank and ditch plainly visible, the bank north. It runs parallel to the Wall, but upon the declining ground south, as the other north: this confirms me in my suspicion, that both works were made at the same time, and by the same persons, and with intent that this should be a counter-guard to the other, the whole included space being military ground. When arrived at the highest ground, is Benwell hill, a military work, one of the larger castra; being 400 foot along the wall, i. e. east and west; not quite so much north and south, 350: this is intrenched with a foss, and had a stone wall, the vestiges whereof are sufficiently distinguishable; as also great tracks of buildings within it, as at the others. It commands a great prospect every way: I doubt not but they could see hence to the next castrum westward; to the east, over Newcastle to the late-mentioned little fort beyond Euxborn; so to Baker-mill hill: southward is a most delightful prospect up two fine valleys over the Tyne; so up the hills south of Gabrocentum, or Gateshead: the eye reaches too the sea-coast to Tunnocelum, or Tynmouth, and the mouth of the river. The village of Benwell subjacent was built out of the ruins of this place, and great quantity of stone is still left. I saw much fragments of Roman bricks, pavings, and gutter-tiles. Two urns were dug up near here; sent to Durham college. I transcribed some altars too, found in this place, at Mr. Shaftoe’s of Benwell tower.