More info on Bowness-on-Solway
Hadrian's Wall ends at Bowness-on-Solway. The Roman name Maia means 'The Larger' as the fort was the largest of the forts to the west of Stanwix, the military administrative centre of the Wall. Although this was the western end of the Wall, it was not the end of the Roman defensive system which carried on through a system of milefortlets and towers to Maryport.
Bowness-on-Solway also marks the end of the Hadrian's Wall Path National Trail (or the start if travelling west to east!).
The Roman fort at Drumburgh lay to the north west of the village but has now been built over by housing. This fort was the smallest on the Wall and probably did not house a full unit. The name 'Drumburgh' means 'Ridge near the fort' and is derived from the Celtic language and the common Old English word 'Burgh', pronounced 'bruff'. Nearby Drumburgh Moss is a National Nature Reserve.
More info on Burgh by Sands
The area around Burgh by Sands is dotted with Roman military encampments, placed at this strategic location to guard two nearby Solway fords which were frequently used by raiding parties from the northern tribes. The Burgh village church is built from stones taken from the Wall.
This was the largest fort on Hadrian's Wall and is thought to have housed a thousand strong cavalry regiment. This was almost certainly the Ala Petriana, the largest cohort of auxiliary troops stationed in Britain. From Gaul, the Ala Petriana was a distinguished regiment, whose soldiers had been made Roman citizens for valour on the field of battle. Stanwix Church and Stanwix House now occupy the site where the foot once stood.
More info on Castlesteads
Guarded an important approach to the Wall and also watched the east bank of the Cambeck against raiders from the Bewcastle area. The site was drastically levelled in 1791 when the gardens of Castlesteads House were laid over it. The name “Camboglana” is believed to mean “Crook Bank”, or "Bent Valley" because it overlooks a bend in the river Irthing.
Banna, now known as Birdoswald Roman Fort, is situated in a commanding position on a triangular spur of land bounded by cliffs to the south and east overlooking a broad meander of the River Irthing in Cumbria. In Roman times, the fort was known as Banna (Latin for "spur" or "tongue"), reflecting the geography of the site. The site is managed by English Heritage and includes the longest, continuous and most accessible stretch of Hadrian's Wall.
Carvoran or Magnis, was originally built to guard the junction of the northbound Maiden Way with the Stanegate, the key supply route linking Coria (Corbridge) in the east to Luguvalium (Carlisle) in the west. As such it pre-dates Hadrian's Wall. Its ruins are located at Carvoran near Greenhead, Northumberland. The nearby Roman Army Museum is a great place to learn more about the site and Hadrian's Wall. The Roman Army Museum is owned and managed by the Vindolanda Charitable Trust.
More info on Great Chesters
Conservation work is now taking place at Great Chesters. Hadrian's Wall Trust is working with Mr Willie Woodman of Great Chesters Farm to conserve and consolidate the Wall on the farm. The team will be on site for the next couple of months and will be a great opportunity for visitors to see conservation work taking place. On the farm, Hadrian's Wall is still used as a field wall. In conjunction with the conservation work on the Wall, the walling team will be ensuring that the Wall is stock proof without disturbing the important archaeology of this iconic monument.
Vindolanda was a Roman auxiliary fort just south of Hadrian's Wall. The fort guarded the Stanegate, the Roman road from the River Tyne to the Solway Firth. The most amazing finds from the site are the thousands of writing tablets recording daily life – letters from soldiers asking for socks and underwear, a birthday party invitation to the forts commander’s wife, requests for payment, lists of goods supplied and troop deployments. The Vindolanda writing tablets were voted Britain's 'Top Treasure'. They are a truly unique and remarkable record of everyday life in the Roman Empire enabling visitors to connect with the real people to whom Vindolanda was home 2000 years ago! Roman Vindolanda is owned and managed by the Vindolanda Charitable Trust.
See excavated remains of all the different types of buildings within a typical fort on view – barracks, headquarters block, commander’s house, granaries, hospital, toilets and a complete circuit of walls. Surrounding the Fort itself is a fascinating Roman military landscape including the civilian settlement, the temple area, parade ground, cultivated fields and Roman roads. Hadrian’s Wall itself runs across the north side of the Fort from where there are dramatic views across the Northumberland landscape into ‘barbaricum’ – where the barbarians lived! It is easy here to feel you are truly on the edge of one of the greatest Empires the world has seen, with the might of Rome in evidence all around you. Housesteads is owned and managed jointly by English Heritage and the National Trust.
The site guarded a bridge carrying the military road behind the wall across the River North Tyne at this point, whose abutments survive. Cilurnum is considered to be the best preserved Roman cavalry fort along Hadrian's Wall. There is a museum on the site, housing finds from the fort and elsewhere along the wall. Inscriptions have also been found showing the First Cohort of Dalmatians and the First Cohort of Vangiones from Upper Rhineland in Germany were also stationed here.
More info on Haltonchesters
A Roman fort north of the modern-day village of Halton, Northumberland. The name “Onnum” means “The Rock”, and probably refers to Down Hill situated to the east of it. The fort guards Dere Street as it crosses the Roman Wall through the valley immediately to the west of it. A dedicatory slab from the west gate of the fort tells us that the Sixth Legion were responsible for the initial building work. The fort was initially garrisoned, probably, by a cohort of 500 partly mounted troops. In the third century it held a regiment of cavalry, the Ala I Pannoniorum Sabiniana, also called Ala Sabiniana, and named after Sabinus who first raised it.
The name Vindobala means “White Strength”. The site of the fort is bisected by the B6318 Military Road, which runs along the route of the wall at that point. Now there is little to be seen on the surface, apart from mounds to the south of the Military Road marking the west and south ramparts. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries stones were systematically removed from the site for local agricultural buildings, and also for the building of the Military Road. The fort was garrisoned in the fourth century by the First Cohort of Frisiavones. These were troops recruited from a coastal tribe of Lower Germany. It is thought that the fort was built for a cohort, 500 strong and part-mounted.
Condercum was a Roman fort at modern-day Benwell, a suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It was the third fort on Hadrian's Wall, after Segedunum (Wallsend) and Pons Aelius (Newcastle), and was situated 2 miles (3 km) to the west of the city. Today, nothing can be seen of the fort or its adjoining wall, as the site is covered by buildings and is crossed by the A186 Newcastle to Carlisle road. The remains of a small temple dedicated to Antenociticus, a local deity, can be seen nearby, and the original causeway over the vallum, or ditch, can also be seen.
The first recorded settlement in what is now Newcastle was Pons Aelius, a Roman fort and bridge across the River Tyne and given the family name of the Roman Emperor Hadrian who founded it in the 2nd century AD. The population of Pons Aelius at this period was estimated at 2,000. Fragments of Hadrian's Wall are still visible in parts of Newcastle, particularly along the West Road. The course of the "Roman Wall" can also be traced eastwards to the Segedunum Roman fort in Wallsend—the wall's end and to the supply fort Arbeia in South Shields.
Wallsend derives its name as the location of the end of Hadrian's Wall.
The fort lay at the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall near the banks of the River Tyne, forming the easternmost end of the Wall. It was in use as a garrison for approximately 300 years, almost up to 400AD.
Today, Segedunum is the most thoroughly excavated fort along Hadrian's Wall, and is operated as Segedunum Roman Fort, Baths and Museum. The site of the fort includes the excavated remains of the buildings' foundation of the original fort, as well as a reconstructed Roman military bathhouse based on excavated examples at Vindolanda and Chesters forts. A museum contains items of interest that were found when the site was excavated and a large observation tower overlooks the site. A portion of the original wall is visible across the street from the museum, and a reconstruction of what the whole wall might have looked like.
