The Roman Wall: A historical, topographical, and descriptive account of the barrier of the lower isthmus, extending from the Tyne to the Solway, deduced from numerous personal surveysBruce, J. Collingwood (John Collingwood)
History
The Roman Wall: A historical, topographical, and descriptive account of the barrier of the lower isthmus, extending from the Tyne to the Solway, deduced from numerous personal surveys
Bruce, J. Collingwood (John Collingwood)
Great Britain -- Antiquities, Roman; Walls, Roman -- Great Britain
The probable meaning of the word VINDOLANA, is ‘the hill of arms;’
_vin_, with slight variations of pronunciation, signifying, in all the
Celtic dialects, a height; and _lann_, in the Gaelic, weapons. The name
well accords with those common in Ossian’s poems.
Rejoining the Wall at Milking-gap, and continuing our course westward,
we soon arrive at a conspicuous gap, on the Steel-rig grounds. The Wall
on the eastern declivity of this pass may be studied to great advantage.
The courses are laid parallel to the horizon; the mortar of each course
of the interior seems to have been smoothed over before the
superincumbent mass was added. In order to give the in-door antiquary an
idea of its condition, a drawing of it is here introduced.
[Sidenote: PEEL-CRAG.]
Mounting another hill, and again descending into the valley, we find
another gap, in which the remains of a mile-castle will be noticed, from
which it has received the name of the Castle-nick. A little farther
removed is Peel-crag, one of the most precipitous faces which the Wall
has had to traverse. The military way ingeniously avoids the sudden
descent by winding round the southern projections of the rock. After
passing a cottage, called the Peel, a modern road is encountered which
leads to Keilder, and so into Scotland; in its progress northwards,
however, it soon degenerates into a mere track. As this pass is more
than usually open, the fosse again appears surmounted by a mound on its
northern margin; the earth-works are strongly marked, but the Wall is
gone.
The lithographic view represents the northern aspect of the crags, as
they appear here.
On the western side of this, sheltered by a few trees, is the farm-house
of Steel-rig. Attaining the next elevation—Winshields-crag—we are on
ground reputed to be the highest between the two seas; a turf cairn has
been erected on it for the purposes of the ordnance survey. From this
lofty summit, the vessels navigating the Solway may easily be descried.
[Sidenote: BLOODY-GAP.]
Proceeding in the same direction, we reach another gap of wide
dimensions, but very steep on both declivities. Here the Wall has been
provided with a ditch, strengthened, as usual in dangerous situations,
with a rampart on its outer margin. If the local vocabulary does not
furnish this pass with a name (and I have not been able to find that it
does), Bloody-gap, from the following circumstance, well befits it.
Nearly direct north from it, is a rising ridge of ground, called
Scotch-coulthard. When the moss-troopers, who abounded in these parts,
succeeded in safely reaching it, their pursuers commonly considered
farther chase useless. Between the Wall and this point of safety,
therefore, the race and the conflict were necessarily of the most
desperate character; that many deadly conflicts have taken place, is
evidenced by the numerous skeletons which are turned up in draining the
ground.
A lonely cottage, upon an exposed part of the ridge, is called
Shield-on-the-Wall.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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