Northumberland Yesterday and To-dayTerry, Jean F. (Jean Finlay)
History
Northumberland Yesterday and To-day
Terry, Jean F. (Jean Finlay)
Northumberland (England) -- Guidebooks; Northumberland (England) -- History
This station of Cilurnum, or Chesters, is a little over five acres
in extent, and is quite near to Chollerford station on the North
British Railway. To describe Cilurnum in detail, and the
interesting museum connected with it, filled with a wonderful
collection of objects found on the line of the Wall, would require
a book to deal with that alone. The general plan is the same as
that which we have already seen at Borcovicus, with the same
rounded corners, and double gateway with guard-chambers at each
side; the western and eastern walls at Chesters, however, have each
an additional single gateway to the south of the larger portals. We
must content ourselves with a short survey of the camp, with its
two wide streets at right angles to each other as at Borcovicus,
and the rest of them very narrow—indeed, little more than two feet
in width; the remains of its Forum and market, its barracks and
houses, its open shops and colonnades, the bases of the pillars yet
in position; its baths, with pipes, cistern, and flues; and a
vaulted chamber which was thought, on its being first excavated, to
lead to underground stables, for a local tradition held that such
were in existence, and would be found, with a troop of five hundred
horses. The vault, however, did not lead further, so that the
tradition remained unproven. Notwithstanding this, there was a
grain of fact in it; for Chesters was a cavalry station, and five
hundred was the full complement of the _ala_, or troop (_ala_ being
a “wing,” and cavalry forming the “wing” of an army in position).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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