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
A chieftain from the northern side having made a successful inroad
into the English border, was crossing the Solway on his return, laden
with booty, when a sudden storm arose. In order to lighten his
labouring vessel, he threw his prisoners overboard in preference to
the cattle which he had stolen. The danger past, he was smitten with
remorse. In order to make such amends as he could, he built a
beacon-tower which overlooks the Solway, and to this day is called the
Tower of Repentance. Tradition avers that the penitent himself carried
all the stones used in its erection to the top of the hill. It is not
far from the town of Ecclefechan.
In passing along the village of Burgh, the observing visitor will notice
the large number of boulder-stones, some of them half a ton in weight,
which are strewed over the ground; several of them have been used in
forming the foundations of the cottages. They are of granite, and in
some distant age have been wrenched from the summit of Criffel, the hill
which lends so much beauty to the landscape on the northern side of the
Solway.
On the western side of the village of Dykesfield, which we next
encounter, is a common that contains several earthen ramparts and
temporary camps.
Between Dykesfield and the next station, Drumburgh, an extensive marsh
occurs, which even now is occasionally overflowed by the waters of the
Solway. Hodgson inclines to the belief, that the Wall ran directly
across it. Horsley, however, took a different view of the subject.
From hence to Drumburgh Castle no vestige of the Wall is to be seen;
though I think it certain that the Wall did not pass through the
marsh, but by Boustead-hill and Easton, for both tradition and matter
of fact favour this course of it. The country people often strike upon
the Wall, and could tell exactly several places through which, by this
means, they knew it had passed, and always by the side of the marsh.
Besides it is no way reasonable to suppose that the Romans would build
their Wall within tide-mark.
[Sidenote: EASTON-MARSH.]
After careful inquiry, I am disposed to adopt Horsley’s view; even now,
stones which appear to be Wall-stones, are turned up by the operations
of the husbandmen in the line which the Wall is supposed to have taken
by Boustead and Easton. It need not be a subject of surprise, that the
Wall in this district has been so thoroughly removed, as there is no
quarry within a convenient distance, and the Wall, therefore, has been
the source from which the inhabitants of the country have drawn their
supply of building stones. The Romans seem to have gone to Howrigg
quarry, which is not less than eight miles south of the Barrier, for
their facing-stones; those which they used for the interior of the Wall
correspond in character with the proceeds of Stone-pot-scar, a quarry on
the north shore of the Solway.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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