John Wykeham Archer

“ Tracing the line of the wall by slight indications we arrived at Hare Hill, where its highest existing fragment appears, standing nine feet ten inches in height; but, deprived of its facing stones, it might, to the inexperienced eye, appear rather a mass of crag than a piece of human workmanship. The wall now stretches away towards the river Eden, visible only by ridges in the soil, which indicate its course till we reach the rivulet called Burtholme Beck, where a portion appears, about seven feet high, embowered by hazels and dwarf oaks. ”

“ But it was not as a votary of Esculapius that I had bent my steps, or rather, taken my second-class ticket by the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway, to this temple of the northern Hygieia; the attraction being, indeed, the Roman station of Amboglanna, at Birdoswald, the finest upon the whole line of the justly celebrated Roman wall which traverses the isthmus that stretches across Northumberland and Cumberland, between the German Ocean on the east, and the Solway Firth on the opposite hand. ”

“ After a while, the clattering of hoofs on the stone pavement outside announced an arrival, and at a whistle from without mine hostess undid the door, and three men entered, wrapped up in long horsemen's coats. The apathetic hostess offered no kind of greeting, but went at once to the flitch of bacon and cut a quantity of huge collops, which the energetic Maggie soon had hissing and brawling in the frying-pan. Meanwhile one of the men, who turned out to be mine host, brought in a jar, or grey-hen, of whisky, which he set on a circular table ”

“ The feeling and sentiment of the painted style of architecture had ceased to exist in Inigo’s time as in that of his great successor, Christopher Wren: witness the towers of Westminster Abbey. Had Inigo been left to his original employment as a carpenter, doubtless he would have made a first-rate hand: but the patronage of the Earl of Arundel, or the Earl of Pembroke, it is not quite clear which—but probably the former—paved the way to a higher destination. Under the auspices of one of these noblemen, he was sent to Italy to study landscape painting. ”

“ A little west of Monk Hill, the vallum crosses the turnpike road, travelling on the north side of it to Burgh on the Sands, where there are traces of another station, within which are the church and the churchyard, the latter having yielded to the sexton’s spade numerous fragments of urns, lachrymatories, and a few inscribed stones, but none of them affording any reference to the cohort by which the station was garrisoned. The church is built so as to adapt it to the purpose of refuge and defence in border strife. ”

“ The south gateway is composed of massive slabs of rustic masonry, and a corresponding gateway appears, walled up, on the northern side, through the wall on which the castle abuts, and opens directly on the face of the crag. These gates have been closed by double folding doorways. The pivot holes are worn by the action of the bolt, which has tinged them with oxide of iron. The opening at each gateway measures ten feet. The width of the wall at the southern gateway is nine feet three inches; at the northern it is ten feet six inches. ”

“ The masonry is composed of small, well dressed cubes of stone, of excellent masonry, apparently inserted endwise, and every third course of stones is topped with a binding course of squared flints, as is often noticed in buildings of Roman construction. ”

“ It was now that, for the first time, I engaged the notice of these worthies; and the host saluted me in words which, though a Border man myself, I could only with difficulty make sense of, enjoining me not to spare the grey-hen, and inquiring what road I travelled. While replying, another whistle was heard at the door; and Maggie ushered in a man, younger than the others, wearing a grey plaid, and apparently a shepherd. ”

“ To the south and south-west the eye wandered with pleasure over the grounds of Rickerby, and the rich course of the Eden passing the ancient towers of Carlisle, the Cumbrian mountains rising in the distance blue and sharply defined. The church and churchyard of Stanwix are planted on the site of the station. In pulling down the old church a fine figure of Victory, now at Newcastle, was found. On Castle Bank, the north bank of the Eden, opposite Stanwix, the foundations of the wall are distinguishable ”

“ Military Road at the Wall near Cawfield Crags.
Leaving this interesting vestige, which lies about midway between the two seas, we made our way to Great Chesters—Æsica—the tenth stationary camp. This comprehends an area of about three acres. In the centre of the camp is a vaulted apartment, similar to that at Walwick Chesters, six feet and a half square and five feet high. It is accessible by a descent of steps, and opposite to the entrance is a stone bench covered with a slab of stone about two feet and a half high and the same in breadth. ”

“ Maggie only remaining to express her regret that they were quite out of vinegar to sauce the bacon, but there was a goudy peg-cheese and some barley-meal bannocks. However, as I did not deem vinegar an indispensable accessory to fried bacon, I made a hearty meal, and presently found myself in condition for a rough ride, the chase of the long-legged hill fox, digging out a badger, spearing an otter, or any rude border sport which circumstances might suggest. ”

“ Their fortifications, their aqueducts, their theatres, their fountains, all their public works, bear the grave, solid, and majestic character of their language, while our modern labours, like our modern tongues, seem but constructed out of their fragments. ”

“ Vipers and serpents innumerable, with all other kinds of wild beasts, infest that place; and, what is most strange, the natives affirm, that if any one passed the wall he would die immediately, unable to endure the unwholesomeness of the atmosphere. Death also attacking such beasts as go thither, forthwith destroys them. ”

“ On the north, east, and west sides the space between the outer and inner ramparts opens to a breadth of about fifty feet. At the east side is a gateway, from which a road is carried down the hill to the Lynhope Burn, apparently with a view to the supply of water, although there is a spring on the hill side a little to the southward of the outer rampart; another hollow-way extends from the west wall down the hill to the Lynhope Burn, and takes up on the opposite side and ascends the hill of Ritta, where it joins another group of fortified towns lying on the hill-side. ”

“ These stones are most likely the remains of a watch tower which gave name to the site. At Dykesfield, probably so named from the works, a small altar was found, and where the wall descends towards Burgh Marsh, quantities of stone, together with ashes and coal appear, and from these indications, together with some difference between this tract and the surrounding soil, it is surmised that here had been a small station. From Dykesfield even the “trail” is lost. Here the vallum ends, and for the further course of the wall, the ploughman is our only guide. ”

“ This latter observation was accompanied by a roguish leer and a chuckle, as if my landlord enjoyed the remembrance of the little farce that had been played off upon me on the night previous; and this demonstration was echoed by the series of guggles, gasps, and wheezing, which constituted the ostler Martin's peculiar style of joculation, from a dark corner of the stable, where that ancient retainer of the "Rising Sun" was smoking the pipe of repose. ”

“ From the village the wall follows the river by a north-west course, through a field called Long Wall, the vallum running in a line with the road. A quantity of stones in Beaumont churchyard, which the wall reaches, seems to mark the site of some building which stood here apart from the wall itself; and it is surmised of greater magnitude than a mile castle. ”

“ In Italy Jones studied the works of Palladio, and is said, but upon doubtful authority, to have designed the front of a church in Leghorn. To this his celebrated barn, the church of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, bears a general resemblance, and it possibly may have procured him the credit of the former. Of his church at Covent Garden we have the following story. Jones was instructed by his patron, the Earl, to build as plain and convenient a church as possible, and but little better than a barn: to which the architect replied he would build a barn, but that it should be the best in England. ”

“ In future ages, when the science of war shall have changed, how few traces will exist of the labours of Vauban or Coehorn, while this wonderful people’s remains will even then continue to interest and astonish posterity! ”

“ Here, on the southern declivity of the hill of Greenshaw, by a moderate climb through the mountain fern, we reach the rocky platform of the Celtic town with its two dependencies, which form a group of fortified places of habitation. The situation is well chosen, for at a height above the level of the sea where the winds rage in full force it is so fixed as to be sheltered by the surrounding hills ”

“ But the walls show a further degree of nicety in construction, and a provision for increased strength by the projection of large courses of stones at right angles with the faces of the wall laid with great exactness, and forming a series of cross-walls or buttresses dividing the rubbled lining of their inner substance and imparting great stability to the whole mass. The whole masonry of these remains is composed of unhewn blocks of porphyry, the stone of the district.
The distance between the ramparts is unequal. On the south side it contracts to a space of twenty-two feet ”

“ When wending through the wild and unfrequented parts of his journey, he will not fail to find matter for reflection, while he bethinks him of the powerful material genius of the people by whom these regions were once thickly populated, and he will be ready to say, with Scott, in the words which he puts into the mouth of his hero in “Guy Mannering,” “What a people! ”

“ The peculiarity which distinguishes these vestiges consists in the abundant use of large Cyclopean masonry instead of earthen bulwarks, as in the south of England, in the construction of the ramparts of the hill towns of the Northumbrian Celts, and of the habitations they comprehend. Tumuli, cairns, cromlechs, and stone circles are likewise found in the same district, together with large stones marked with a kind of hieroglyphic inscriptions which remain undeciphered, but which are conceived to have been the writings of the Druidic hierarchy of the Celtic tribes. ”

“ From the few rude articles which have been turned up during the excavations, no evidence has appeared to indicate any degree of wealth on the part of the ancient inhabitants, or the possession of arms and implements in any way superior to such as may have belonged to a people shut out from the more civilised tribes which evidently inhabited some parts of Britain before the Roman invasion. ”

“ A few glass beads have probably served as amulets. In one hut a fragment of a glass armlet was found, and which, with the beads, may have reached this remote spot by indirect transmission from those tribes which were in communication with the Phœnician voyagers. Fragments of chipped flints, together with a javelin-head of the lowest type, which as flint does not occur in Northumberland, must have been brought from a considerable distance. Horns of the red deer are evidently the spoils of the noble animal from which the neighbouring hill of Hartside has been named. ”

“ In some of the western isles of Scotland the people still use the ancient circular buildings for their dwellings. These are beehive-shaped constructions, the stones being so laid as to form a dome-shaped roof, the opening left being covered by a slab of stone. This mode of building is even practised to the present time where families increase so as to require additional habitations. ”

“ It was a shambling, slouching creature, with starting, bloodshot eyes, and twisted neck, the chin drooping upon the chest, and hands that worked and clutched like the hands of a drowning man, as he worked his way towards the grey-hen. His advent was hailed with shouts and laughter.
"Odds, here cooms auld Maartie! Hoy, auld ghaist, wake up an' hev a pull o' the grey-hen; say awa', [9] auld Maartie; steady, now, steady, auld cheat-the-woodie! Haribee hills! miles awa! Eh! there it goes doon his gizzern. My certes, whaten a willeywaugh! Now settle thee doon, auld black sheep! ”

“ By the road my route ought to have covered not more than ten miles, but as I was desirous of taking up the Roman road called the Maiden Way, I took to tho moors soon after leaving a small change-house, where I stopped for the common refreshment of oat-cake and peg-cheese, with a little whisky, well diluted with spring water, cool as if iced. This I have always found a good walking staff in the absence of churn-milk, a most refreshing beverage ”

“ Under the Court patronage he likewise had scope for the exercise of his versatile mind in the decorative accompaniments to Ben Jonson’s Whitehall Pageants, so much in vogue in the dissipated Court of King James. Ashburnham House, and the houses on the west side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, together with the Banqueting House and St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, have been instanced in evidence of Inigo’s emancipation from the Mesquin style which succeeded the decadence of the Tudor style of architecture, which ensued upon his second visit to Italy in 1612. ”

“ At that time we proceeded to the scene of the funeral. Lethwaite was a very old man, and had enjoined that he should he interred strictly according to ancient usage. I dare say such observances are altogether forgotten now that a railway gradient crosses Shap Fell, but at that time they still lingered. The coffin was placed upon a deal table in front of the cottage which the old man had long tenanted, and upon it, over the breast, was a pewter plate containing salt, a type of the immortality of the spirit ”