In no part of its course is the Wall entirely perfect, and therefore it is difficult to ascertain what its original height has been. Bede, whose cherished home was the monastery of Jarrow, anciently part of the parish of Wall’s-end, is the earliest author who gives its dimensions. He says—‘It is eight feet in breadth, and twelve in height, in a straight line from east to west, as is still visible to beholders.’ Subsequent writers assign to it a greater elevation. It is not unlikely that the venerable monk, who was no traveller, describes it as it existed in his own neighbourhood; and we can readily conceive that in a flat country, and upon the border of a navigable river, it would, even then, have suffered more from the hand of the spoiler than in the wilder regions of the West. In a letter written by Sir Christopher Ridley, is an account of the Wall as it stood about the year 1572. The writer says— Rycht worschipfull, where as you spake unto me for a certayn knowledge of one wall builded betwyxt the Brittons and Pightes (which we call the KEPE WALL) builded by the Pightes, sure theyr is one. The length whereof is about, I think, almost a C myles, bilded alwayis whar they cold upon the hyghtes, whereon about the greatest cragis was, and whare theyr was no cragis or hy placis theyr was a great stank cast of other syd, the bredth iij yardis, the hyght remanith in sum placis yet vij yardis, it goith from Bowlness in Cu'berland viij myles beyond Carlell upon the west sea cost till it comes to a town called the Wallis end besyd Tynemouth on the est sea.[15] Samson Erdeswick, an English antiquary of some celebrity, visited the Wall, in the year 1574.[16] His account is here given— As towching Hadrian’s[17] Wall, begyning abowt a town called Bonus standing vppon the river Sulway now called Eden. The sea ebbeth and floweth there. The forsaid Wall begynning there, and there yet standing of the heyth of 16 fote, for almost a quarter of a myle together, and so along the river syde estwards, they space of an eight myle by the shew of the trench, as certayne ruynes of castills in that wall, tyll a qwarter of a myle of Carlyole, and there passeth ower the river of Eden; and then goeth straight estwards hard by a late abbey called Lanvercost, and so crossing ower the mowntaynes toward Newcastell. [Sidenote: THE WIDTH OF THE WALL.] Camden, who visited the Wall in 1599, says— Within two furlongs of Carvoran, on a pretty high hill the Wall is still standing fifteen feet in height, and nine in breadth. These statements leave upon the mind an impression that the estimate of Bede is too low.