England -- Antiquities, Roman; Hadrian's Wall (England); Walls, Roman -- England
The next farm-house is Carrawburgh, and near here lay the Roman fort
of PROCOLITIA. A mile-castle is seen on the left just before we come
to the fort.
There is very little indeed of Procolitia to be seen on the surface.
The famous well of the water-goddess, Coventina, is merely a patch of
rushes railed round, and too wet even to be examined. It is just
possible to make out the walls and gateways of the fort under the
grass. The great Wall joined on to the north wall of the fort. The
Vallum curves round to the south to avoid it.
{107}
The first cohort of the Batavians was stationed at Procolitia; and
the Tungrians were stationed at the next fort, Borcovicium. This is
significant, because Tacitus mentions that Batavians and Tungrians
fought side by side in Agricola's army when he won the battle of Mons
Graupius. So it seems that they first came to Britain under
Vespasian.
After we have passed the farm-house of Carraw, built by the monks of
Hexham for a summer residence, Sewingshields comes into full view,
nestling in trees, exactly over the top of the next hill in the road.
The land has now become still more bleak and barren; there are no
longer fresh green pastures, but brownish sheep-moors, dotted with
tufts of rushes and coarse grass. Presently I saw something dark
sticking up in the long grass by the side of the road. I was meeting
the wind, so I got quite close before it moved. It was the two dark
ears of a hare which sped like lightning, when it saw me, under a
five-barred gate on the right, and so across the moor, till it
vanished, as a speck, over the horizon.
And now at last the Wall leaves Wade's Road, so I climbed over the
stone fence which bounds the road to walk on its grassy mound. It
diverges more and more from the road, and makes straight for where
the crags begin at Sewingshields.
It soon brought me to a very interesting {108} mile-castle which has
been excavated. The northern gateway is the first good specimen of a
mile-castle gateway that we have come to. It is fenced round to
protect it from animals. I clambered over the stone dyke and down
into the Wall-ditch, to gaze up at the massive masonry, which looks
much more imposing seen from the north. Nine courses of stones are
in place on the western side of this gateway.
There were now two stone dykes between me and Wade's Road. The
Wall-ditch continued to be very deep and striking. Flags and
water-reeds covered its bottom, and great boulders lay strewn about.
At a fir-plantation the Vallum crosses Wade's Road, and from this
point onwards it runs along in the low land while the Wall clings to
the heights.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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