32. Where was the western terminus of Hadrian’s Wall?

Just as Wallsend fort was not the eastern terminus, so Bowness apparently saw an extension of the curtain wall to the west of the fort there. In 1707, Bishop Nicholson noted that the terminus of the Wall lay a quarter of a mile west of the village. When Maclauchlan surveyed the Wall in 1853, he found local people who remembered excavating building stone from the beach some 250yds west of the fort.

Bizarrely, the westernmost pieces of Hadrian’s Wall may now lie about 120 miles off Fastnet, since the stones from the eastern terminus were possibly still on RMS Carpathia when she was sunk by German torpedoes in 1918.

Further reading: Mothersole 1922; Breeze 2006

31. Where was the eastern terminus of Hadrian’s Wall?

The eastern terminus of Hadrian’s Wall was not the fort of Wallsend itself, since it has long been recognised that a spur, known as the Branch Wall, ran down towards the Tyne from the south-east corner of the fort. Word-of-mouth reports recorded that it reached at least to low tide level. A short length of it was excavated in 1903 during the construction of the new slipway for the RMS Mauretania, moved (although a few pieces were displayed on the RMS Carpathia, which was fitting at the Wallsend shipyard at the time), and has now been moved back to close to its original location. Thus the eastern terminus probably lies beneath the now-defunct Swan Hunter shipyard. Some scholars have speculated that there may have been a Milecastle 0 but no evidence to support this has ever been found.

Further reading: Mothersole 1922; Breeze 2006

30. What is the Intermediate Wall?

Traditionally, the Intermediate Gauge has been identified as the Hadrian’s Wall curtain wall constructed between Milecastle 54 and Bowness fort to replace the Turf Wall, after the abandonment of the Antonine Wall. It was built on a foundation of flagstones and was around 2.45m wide.

Further reading: Breeze 2006; Symonds and Mason 2009

29. What is the Narrow Wall?

There are actually several types of Narrow Wall, ranging between 1.8m and 2.3m in width. The significance of the variations is disputed, but the important point is that the curtain wall was significantly reduced in width from the broad gauge. It was used for those sections east of the Irthing that had not already been built to the broad gauge and to replace part of the Turf Wall (between the Irthing and Milecastle 54) before the Wall was abandoned to move up to the Antonine Wall.

Further reading: Breeze 2006; Symonds and Mason 2009

28. What is the Broad Wall?

The earliest version of the stone curtain wall of Hadrian’s Wall was built to what is known as the broad gauge, about 10 Roman feet (3m) wide. It was set on a foundation about 3.2m wide, with offset courses stepped in above it, either one course (known as standard A) or three or four (standard B). This was the form of the foundations from Newcastle to the River Irthing, but there is reason to doubt that much of the broad curtain wall was ever completed to its full height.

Further reading: Breeze 2006; Symonds and Mason 2009

27. Were turf walls common in the Roman empire?

Turf walls (and other forms of earthen ramparts) were often used for fortifications in the 1st century AD, particularly in Britain. They were employed for both auxiliary forts and legionary fortresses, and were standard for temporary camps used when on the march or on campaign. Vegetius describes how they were constructed. They were not commonly used for frontiers, however, Hadrian’s Wall being the first and the Antonine Wall the second, so far as we know.

Further reading: Milner 1995

26. Does any of the Hadrian’s Wall Turf Wall survive?

For most of its length, the Turf Wall was levelled and the replacement narrow gauge stone curtain wall built directly on top of it, retaining the same ditch. However, between Milecastles 49 and 51 the new Stone Wall was built further north, and that means that the Turf Wall and its ditch survive as earthworks here, immediately north of the Vallum. This section was first excavated in 1895 and periodically re-examined.

There is one additional area where the Stone Wall deviates from the course of the Turf Wall and that is where Turret 54A collapsed into the Turf Wall ditch and its replacement was built just behind it; here the stone curtain wall was realigned to join the newer turret.

Further reading: Breeze 2006; Symonds and Mason 2009

25. Why was the Turf Wall built?

Some scholars have suggested that the reason for the use of a turf rampart may have been the difficulty in obtaining good building stone on the western side of the country or even the difficulty in obtaining limestone to make lime for mortar. Nevertheless, the stone curtain wall was later extended all the way to Bowness, using St Bees sandstone, probably after the final abandonment of the Antonine Wall in the mid-AD 160s, so perhaps the problem was that these materials could not be obtained and assembled quickly enough to complete the project in good time. The Emperor Hadrian himself commented to troops in North Africa that it normally took longer to construct a stone wall than an equivalent turf rampart.

Further reading: Breeze and Dobson 2000

24. What is the Turf Wall?

The original scheme for Hadrian’s Wall consisted of a stone curtain wall between Newcastle and the river Irthing (Wall Miles 4 to 48) and then a turf rampart from the Irthing to Bowness (49 to 79). The rampart was built on a base about 6m (20 Roman feet) wide with no foundation trench, in some places just laid turves, in others cobbles were used, but it seems to have depended what materials were available. The rear face sloped at an angle of about 67° and the front was vertical near the base and then probably sloped above.

The Turf Wall was equipped with turf and timber milecastles but stone turrets. These turrets, built free-standing and with the turf rampart then butted against them, were retained when the stone curtain wall was built (suggesting the walkway, if there was one, stayed at the same height). The ditch that was dug for the Turf Wall was retained for the Stone Wall, although the berm increased in width from around 1.9–2.4m (6–8 Roman feet) to 6m (20 Roman feet).

It is assumed there was some sort of wooden superstructure, such as a walkway and parapet, but almost no evidence has survived to support this. The one clue that there might have been a walkway comes from the fact that when the Turf Wall was replaced by a stone curtain, that stone wall was set back slightly from the front of the turrets. Some scholars have suggested this shows it was lined up with existing doorways on the turrets giving access to a walkway.

Further reading: Breeze and Dobson 2000; Symonds and Mason 2009

23. Was Hadrian’s Wall always the most northerly frontier of Roman Britain?

No. Soon after Hadrian died in AD 138 and he was succeeded by his adoptive son, Antoninus Pius, work began on a new mural barrier across the Forth–Clyde isthmus. This time, like the Turf Wall, it was an earthen rampart on a stone base, but it was also much shorter, with fewer and smaller forts, and would have required fewer men to garrison it. However, it was abandoned within 25 years of its construction and Hadrian’s Wall was recommissioned as the most northerly frontier in the Roman Empire.

Further reading: Breeze and Dobson 2000