 Walking
Hadrian’s Wall
Allen Johnson — 9 June 2005
Join us as we search for Roman coins, visit King Arthur’s
Camelot and hike a 2,000-year-old wall from sea to sea. This
summer my wife Gloria and I are taking our 11-year-old twin
granddaughters to England to walk Hadrian’s Wall from
the North Sea to the Irish Sea.
In 120 AD, the emperor of Rome, Hadrian, decided to build
a wall across England to protect the Roman settlements in
the south from the Barbarians in the north. He chose to start
the wall near Newcastle and end at the Solway Firth since
that was the narrowest part of central England. The wall stretches
80 miles across the rugged English countryside. A force of
100,000 Roman soldiers and engineers quarried one million
limestone blocks to face the ten-foot-thick, fifteen-foot-high
wall. Imagine the Herculean effort it took to chisel block
after block from the local quarry, transport the heavy blocks
to the site, hoist them up onto the wall and cement them in
place. The center of the wall was filled with rubble. Every
mile, the soldiers constructed a milecastle to house thirty
soldiers and every third of a mile they built a watchtower
to house ten soldiers. The entire wall was completed in three
years, a monumental achievement. Supporting forts were built
a few miles behind the wall at fifteen-mile intervals to house
500 cavalry and support that section of the wall. The result
is the most remarkable monument to four centuries of Roman
rule in Britain.
 Come
along with us as we hike ten miles a day, stopping often to
visit ruins of milecastles, museums, local historical sites
and picturesque English pubs. Much of the wall has been dismantled
over the past 2,000 years and the stone used to build churches,
barns, farmhouses and city buildings. Many of the building
we will visit display plaques and art work purloined from
the ancient wall. During the excavation of one fort a hoard
of over 13,000 Roman coins dated before 350 AD was discovered
in the well. The brass, silver and gold coins are now on display
at the Black Gate Museum in Newcastle.
Our granddaughters have read about King Arthur and the round
table. Our walk will take them through be the Roman fort Camboglanna,
near Carlisle, which is believed to be King Arthur’s
Camelot. King Arthur and his knights fought many battles along
Hadrian’s Wall and he died in battle there. According
to local history he was buried at Avalon, the Roman Fort Avalanna.
One of my English friends related a story of King Arthur and
his court being bewitched. A farmer from Sewingshield was
sitting knitting on the ruins of a castle by Hadrian’s
Wall when his clew (ball of yarn) fell and ran downward through
a rush of briars into a deep subterranean passage. Full in
the faith that the entrance into King Arthur’s hall
was now discovered, he cleared the briary portal of its weeds,
and entering a vaulted passage, followed in his darkling way,
the thread of his clew. The floor was infested with toads
and lizards; and the dark wings of bats disturbed by his unhallowed
intrusion, flitted fearfully around him.
At length his sinking faith was strengthened by a dim, distant
light, which, as he advanced, grew gradually brighter, till
all at once, he entered a vast and vaulted hall. In the center
of the hall a fire without fuel, from a broad crevice in the
floor, blazed with a high and lambent flame. The firelight
showed all the carved walls, and fretted roof, and the monarch
and his queen and court, reposed around in a theatre of thrones
and costly couches.
On the floor, beyond the fire, lay the faithful and deep
toned pack of thirty couples of hounds; and on a table before
it the spell dissolving horn, sword and garter. The shepherd
reverently, but firmly, grasp the sword, and as he drew it
leisurely from its rusty scabbard, the eyes of the monarch
and his courtiers began to open, and they rose till they sat
upright. He cut the garter; and as the sword was being slowly
sheathed, the spell assumed its ancient power. The King and
court all gradually sunk to rest (the shepherd was supposed
to cut the garter and blow the bugle to break the spell);
but not before the monarch had lifted up his eyes and hands
and exclaimed,
“O woe betide that evil day,
On which this witless wight was born,
Who drew the sword-the garter cut,
But never blew the bugle-horn!”
Our grandchildren are excited about exploring the above
mentioned castle ruins as we walk the wall. Their favorite
game is hide-and-seek and they’re sure they can find
the hidden passage.
It will also be fun to expose the granddaughters to the
difference between American English and British or Anglo-Saxon
English. They’ll learn a:
• Burn is a small stream
• Crag is a steep, rugged rock cliff,
• Fells are a hillside
• Firth is the water passage where the tide
meets the river current
• Gorse is juniper
• Lough is Celtic for lake (loch)
• Moor is a boggy area of wasteland
• Tarn is a small, steep-banked mountain lake,
• Vicus is a small group of people who provide
day labor to support the Roman legions
• Wolds is an elevated track of uncultivated
land
We fly out on June 14, 2005 for our three-week walk across
England. Check this Newsletter for weekly updates to see if
our granddaughters have discovered any Roman coins, King Arthur’s
hall or the Lambton dragon of Newcastle.
Newsletter Archive:
Setting
Goals—The Ironman
Walking
Hadrian's Wall — Part 1
Walking
Hadrian's Wall — Part 2
Walking
Hadrian's Wall — Part 3
Canadian
Rocky Mountain Horseback Adventure |
