What did the Romans ever do for us?

We're being rather extravagant and staying in Haltwhistle for FOUR days - outrageous! Chare Close is a delightful b&b as a base for exploring Hadrian's Wall country.

Today we rode a 20 mile loop that took in two Roman forts, bits of the Wall, and a lot of stunning scenery. The ride itself was nice enough - quite hilly, but it's amazing what a difference not having 15kg (Alex) and 25kg (James) on the back makes when you're climbing a steep ascent.

Housestead's was a Roman fort whose northern wall formed part of Hadrian's Wall proper. There's obviously still bits to be excavated, because there are lumps and bumps under the hill with cleared ruins; but the bits that you can see include the commander's house, barracks, a granary and bits of the civilian settlement that grew up around it.


Part of the system enabling underfloor heating


Hadrian's Wall, next to Housestead's

From Housestead's we went to Vindolanda, perhaps the most famous of the sites up here. It was occupied by Roman forces for at least 300 years - there are sections labeled "pre-Hadrianic [blah blah]". Perhaps its most important contribution is that its peculiar soil conditions have allowed enormous amounts of thin wooden sheets that acted as paper to survive - complete with writing: inventories, party invitations, and other mostly mundane ephemera that the British Museum named 'Britain's Top Treasure'. Today, it's an exceptionally well-maintained site (and a lot more interesting in the blazing sun - today - than in the drizzling rain - last time we were here). There's a museum stocked with artifacts from the site (leather shoes, horse armour, glass, and ever so much pottery), and of course the ruins themselves, which cover maybe an acre or more at the moment. Barracks, the commander's house, baths, ovens... lots and lots of buildings that are basically foundations with a bit of wall, giving a tantalising look at the size (small) and shape of this fairly important bit of Roman state security (Hadrian himself is thought to have visited).


Take a bath

Also on site, and exciting me more than James thought entirely reasonable, were Real Live Archaeologists (with volunteers), doing Real Live Archaeology. Which we got to watch for a while. (They must also have a patent on Squeaky Wheelbarrow Wheels.) This got me thinking, however, about exactly what it was we were looking at, at Vindolanda. The archaeologists were excavating a barracks; a little way over there were others who were 'consolidating' a section so it could be opened to the public. How much of Vindolanda (and Housesteads, and the other sites) is actually 'real'? Actually Roman? We take on trust that they're using the 'actual' stones that the Romans used, but it's not clear on site just how much of the walls were found amazingly intact, and how much has been reconstructed to give the public (and historians, I guess) an idea of what life was like in the third or fourth centuries AD for your average Roman soldier on the scary frontier of Britania. Somehow there's a difference between seeing reconstructed pottery in a museum case - which you can see has been reconstructed, because there's cracks - and looking at a wall and assuming or wondering whether the concrete is ancient or very modern. Is it deceitful not to add to their information panels that 'this section has been reconstructed to its present height...'? There's one section of Vindolanda that does have this - it's a re-created mile castle, that you can clamber in and over, to show what it would really have been like...

Speaking of clambering, the other interesting issue I got to thinking about today is the difference in approach towards material stuff. In Aus, people are getting a bit thingy about tourists clambering all over Uluru and eroding it (the issue of whether it should be regarded as sacred is a different issue). Here: please, feel free to climb over our Roman ruins and medieval castles! Interesting.

After Vindolanda, we followed a meandering course over Hadrian's Wall to join the barbarian hordes (mostly sheep and cattle, plus one crazy Royal Mail driver) in Northumberland National Park, then back around and into Haltwhistle. To have a pleasant afternoon here.


A mile castle