The Wall

by Alistair Moffat

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  1. Chesters Fort (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  2. The remains of the vicus at Vindolanda (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  3. How the Wall might have looked – the reconstruction at Vindolanda (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  4. Barcombe Hill behind Vindolanda (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  5. Housesteads Fort (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  6. The south-west corner of Housesteads Fort, rebuilt in part by John Clayton’s masons (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  7. Buildings beyond Housesteads Fort (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  8. The only section of the Wall where walking i
s permitted, west of Housesteads Fort (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  9. Sycamore Gap (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  10. Part of the central section looking towards Crag Lough and Hotbank Farm (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  11. Stones for the arch at milecastle 37 (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  12. The Whin Sill and the central section (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  13. Wall foundations with a dyke built from Roman stone in the central section (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  14. A detail of the Wall (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  15. The steep gradient on the Whin Sill (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  16. Detail of the Wall near Housesteads (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  17. The quarry at Walltown, which took a bite out of the Wall (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  18. The rubble core of the Wall at Walltown (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  19. The early turret at Walltown Crags (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  20. Milecastle, near Birdoswald (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  21. An impressive run of Wall east of Birdoswald (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  22. Birdoswald Fort. The timber posts mark the location of the post-Roman hall (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  23. Turret at Birdoswald (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  24. Poltross Burn milecastle, near Birdoswald. The railway runs very close (on the left-hand side). (copyright © Liz Hanson)

  Massive defences were a common feature throughout the Roman Empire. Linear barriers such as Hadrian’s Wall, however, were not typical, although remains in Roman Syria, at Rasafa and Halabiya for example, give a good impression of how the Wall might have appeared in its heyday. The following pictures illustrate a number of features which would have formed part of Hadrian’s Wall but which are better preserved elsewhere, including the inevitable back-up systems such as roads and garrison towns that were integral to the maintenance of frontier defences.

  25. Dura Europos was a garrison city, originally settled by veterans of Alexander the Great’s army, and shares many characteristics with the Northumberland garrisons: barracks, a praetorium, a Mithraeum and – like Vindolanda – preserved documents (Copyright © Warwick Ball)

  26. Gonio, on the Black Sea coast in Georgia, boasts probably the most intact legionary fort in the entire Empire, where it is still possible to walk the entire circuit of the parapet (Copyright © Warwick Ball)