I had heard from various sources that I must not miss seeing the Roman town of Corstopitum at Corbridge; but on my first attempt, when I motored with friends to the little town on the Cor Burn, we only succeeded in finding a field-gate with a notice up, "Excavations closed." So obediently we went away, only to be told afterwards how foolish we had been to pay any regard to the notice, for if we had inquired at the farm, we could have got the key of the little Museum-shed, and have seen everything. But how were we to know that? I was not able to go again until I most happily fell in with the Pilgrimage of the Archæological Societies, and was allowed to join it. Corstopitum is 2½ miles south of the Roman Wall, {230} and on the line of the Stanegate, of which its chief street forms a part. Dere Street crossed the river here by a bridge of ten piers, and entered this site. It seems that the importance of Corstopitum dates from the time of Agricola, but was greatly increased after the building of the Antonine Wall, 140 A.D., and its most prosperous times were in that period. It probably depended for its protection chiefly on the Wall and the Wall forts, being itself only a great military store, covering 30 acres, of which 20 have been excavated. When I visited the excavations they had been neglected for years owing to the war, and ragwort and thistles had done their best to blot them out again. I could not help thinking of these beautiful lines by Maude Egerton King: "Not bands, nor wheels, nor belching towers Can break, or yoke, Or blind with smoke The vital powers, So swift to spread their cloak Of grassy forgiveness and sweet-scented stars Over earth's man-made scars." But on this particular occasion one wished that nature had not been quite so busy in seeking to heal the "scars" made by the excavators! The granaries are magnificent buildings, strongly buttressed to resist the pressure of the heavy stone roofs, with floors raised on sleeper walls, and a ventilation space below, to keep the corn both dry {231} and cool. Window-openings between the buttresses admitted air under the floors. In one window there is a stone mullion, which is probably the only Roman mullion now to be seen. The original western granary was evidently built before the eastern. There are several levels of occupation in Corstopitum, and the western granary has two floors, two walls, two sets of drainage, one above the other, whereas the eastern granary has only one of each. The heavy stone blocks of which they are built are rusticated--inner surfaces as well as outer. Beyond the granaries are a public fountain and watering-trough. Other buildings found prove that Corstopitum was an industrial centre of some importance.