At Newburn, as we passed, I saw a stone over a stable-door, next to the sign of the boat; a tablet of the Roman fashion, ansated, cut in, but the inscription worn out, as being exposed to the weather over the river side. The Roman wall leaves the common road about a mile east of Newburn, and passes northward to recover the northern edge of the high ground; the counter-guard ditch, called Hadrian’s, accompanying it _pari passu_. I saw some more carved stones at Newburn, not worth reciting. We leave Benwell on our right hand, a Roman station. The road two or three miles west of Newcastle is very broad and strait, and enters the west gate directly. At East Denton, three miles west of Newcastle, is an inscription, in a stable-wall, of the eighth cohort of the second legion. NEWCASTLE. This is a very large and populous town. The Picts wall ran along by the north side of the road from Corbridge hither, upon a northern declivity all the way, and in a strait line, on the north side of Newcastle. The present castle was built where the Roman _castrum_ was, and the Roman bridge: that and the walls of the town, the churches, and oldest houses, are raised from the plunder of the Roman wall, which ought to have been preserved as the noblest monument in Europe: it seems to have gone across the present town, from the west gate to Pandon gate; and lately, about the meeting-house, they dug up foundations of it: near Pandon gate was found a seal-ring, now in Mr. Warburton’s possession. One of the church steeples in this town is of a very ingenious model, the original of one near London bridge. The bridge here is very long, has houses on it: the arches and piers are rather larger than those of London bridge. There is a ground-plot of this town lately made by an artist. In some parts of this country, the ordinary people make a good sort of ale called _hather_, that is, ling ale, by boiling the tops of the Hather plant to a wort: then I suppose they put wormwood to it, and ferment it.