Mark Van Horn

Dr. Hudson
History 411
December 3, 2014
Hadrian's Wall: An Archaeological History
Hadrian was the first to build a wall, eighty miles long, to separate the Romans from the
barbarians.1 This famous line, the customary beginning to scholarly work on the topic of the Great
Roman Wall stretching sea to sea, is the only ancient reference we have to this massive landmark's
purpose. For this reason, this one line has had a great deal of influence in how we have perceived
the monument throughout history. Hadrian's Wall has typically been seen as a boundary- first of the
northernmost extent of the Roman Empire, then, throughout the medieval period, as a less formal
divide between Scotland and England.2 The zone of the wall itself has been one that has seen
frequent conflict throughout the ages. From the Romans to the Anglo-Scottish wars the Tyne and
the 80 miles to the west were a conflict area, of border of hostile powers, and so throughout the
study of the wall as a monument, imperialism and militarism have almost always been at the heart
of any investigation.3 These imperialist notions were especially dear to Britain in the 19th century,
where they looked to the Romans as colonizers and civilizers of the barbarian swaths of Britannia,
much as they saw themselves bringing that civilization further about the globe: Written history
always has a way of taking on the zeitgeist of the writer.4 What do these histories have to say about
Hadrian's Wall, then, and what has the archaeology of the wall have to say to compliment it? The
easiest answer to that is that what exactly it has to say has changed dramatically over time, and
through careful archaeological excavation first and foremost, we can finally begin to say what
Hadrian's Wall meant to Roman Britain, perhaps the earliest chapter of true substance of British
history, and clearly a defining influence on the future of the nation.
In order to understand fully the impact of the wall on the people around it, and the science of
the excavations that have shaped the wall in our minds today, it is important to understand the
physical nature of the wall itself. 73 miles long (80 Roman miles) with an average site width of a
quarter mile (including the Fosse, the Vallum, and local sites in the periphery), the site of the wall is
approximately 16 square miles, and therefore is impossibly large to fully excavate at the same rate
throughout.5 Collingwood writes that if the entirety of the length of the wall were excavated with
the detail that the Society of Antiquaries excavated Silchester, a 20 year excavation, it would be in

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5

Historia Augusta
Nesbitt, Tolia-Kelly 372
Nesbitt, Tolia-Kelly 370
Nesbitt, Tolia-Kelly 373
Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood, 37

the vicinity of 2,000 years to complete excavations on the wall grounds.6 To the south of the wall
lies the Vallum, a large trench followed by a mound of piled turf, generally staying within 60-80
yards of the wall itself.7 Between these two structures, the Vallum and the Wall, lies the Military
Way, a Roman road connecting the milecastles and forts along the length of the wall. Hadrian's
Wall, as originally constructed, stretched from Stanwix to Newcastle Upon Tyne, however it was
later extended in both directions. To the east, the wall from Newcastle to Wallsend have unevenly
spaced milecastles, with all milecastles to the west of Newcastle build with respect to Newcastle,
indicating a first point of origin.8 In the west, where the wall meets the Eden, there was an extension
added seven Roman miles long west to Watch Hill, ending in Burgh Marsh: this section is only 9
feet thick, a unique thickness along the whole of the wall, indicating independent construction.9
Through cross referencing found stones with Roman names of forts on them with surviving lists of
wall forts in order, we can attempt to establish the Roman names of many of these forts. These forts
are Segedunum (Wallsend), Pons Aelius (Newcastle), Condercum (Benwell Hill), Vindobala
(Rudchester), Hunnum (Halton Chesters), Cilurnum (Chesters), Procolita (Carrowburgh),
Vercovicium (Housesteads), Aesica (Great Chesters), Magnis (Carvoran), Banna (Birdoswald),
Camboglanna (Castlesteads), Uxelodunum (Stanwix), Aballava (Burgh-by-Sands), Coggabata
(Drumburgh), and Mais (Bowness-on-Solway).10 There are also two distinct main sections to the
wall construction itself, the 'Broad Wall' and the 'Narrow Wall'. The wall began construction in the
east at Newcastle, but just after reaching the North Tyne was narrowed to a width of just 8.2 feet.
Curiously, foundations had already been laid as far as the River Irthing for the broad width, and so
there is a mismatch of wall to foundation for some time. Additionally, from Milecastle 49 west, the
wall was originally constructed of turf, which was later demolished and replaced with a stone wall,
which often took a moderately different route due to the proximity of the turf wall to the Fosse in
front of it.11 Due to this early turf wall to the west, it was previously thought that large portions of
the entire wall were turf, later replaced with stone; this was proved false in the early 20th century.12
The forts themselves are milecastles that have been expanded upon and built up, or were standing
before the wall itself came to be and later build into the structure. Additionally, almost all of the
intermediate wall and its milecastles from west of milecastle 54 to Bowness have been completely
stripped of their stone, leading to almost impossible stratigraphy.13 This is not an uncommon
occurrence on the wall. With these technical details now out of the way, we may proceed to the
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12
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Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood, 37

Bruce, 50
Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood, 53-54
Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood, 54
Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood, 65, 66, 69
Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood, 53
Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood, 48
Richmond, 50

most important part of the history of Hadrian's Wall- the work that has been done on it to help
decipher what exactly all this material culture meant.

A cross section of the Wall and Vallum

As Claire Nesbitt and Divya Tolia-Kelly so eloquently put it, the appeal of the Wall as a
monument is not due to its construction, but due to its story.14 As a monument, the wall is an
imposing figure, and one that gives off intense notions of control, orderly construction and living,
and even an image so personal as a cold auxillary troop huddled around a watch fire on top of a
tower and snow gently falls around him, scanning the horizon. Even the Venerable Bede was
infatuated with the wall; he was from Wallsend, and is the earliest author we have to give
14 Nesbitt, Tolia-Kelly 383

dimensions, marking the wall at eight feet wide and twelve feet high, perhaps a modest estimation15
The first true 'surface inspection' of the wall was seriously begun by William Camden in 1599,
when he went the length of much of the east wall and tried to match Roman names to the names of
the British towns through linguistic similarity, rather unsuccessfully.16 He believed that the stone
wall structure was actually a successor to the Vallum, and was the first to even attempt to
scientifically document inspection of the monuments. According to Camden, Hadrian built not the
wall but the Vallum, and Severus built the stone wall in front of the Vallum.17 This theory was to last
for almost 250 years. The first real successor to Camden came with Gibson in 1708, a London
Bishop. Gibson's work is characterized by what would be considered good field work for the time,
but rather poor theories. He accepted the 'North Defence' theory of the wall's construction without
hesitation, and took the work of Bede and Gildas at face value, which is always a very dangerous
thing to do. Still, his fairly detailed and accurate descriptions of almost every fort along the length
of the wall were an important step for those that would follow him.
The next official on the topic of the wall came with Stukeley, in 1725. He was the first in a
line of excavators and historians to believe that the Vallum was in fact a secondary defensive line,
aimed towards the south, and a hostile British population.18 He envisioned a wall that was, in
essence, a military camp from sea to sea, and his sketches of many different wall sites were
published in 1776, the first sketches of the wall made readily available to the public.19 The next
personality to take hold of literature on the Great Roman Wall was a man named William Hutton,
who traveled the length of the wall in 1801. His detailed personal account, one of the first emotional
accounts of the experience of the wall, was one of the first works that attempted to look beyond the
physical aspects of the wall itself, and is a style that would not be repeated until the late 20th
century.20 An extremely important development for Wall Archaeology came about a few decades
later, in 1840. Reverend John Hodgson published his History of Northumbria, which included in it
some of the first ever scientifically documented excavations of the eastern portions of the wall that
lay within Northumbria. This is also where the first proposal for the 'Hadrianic Theory', that is, that
Hadrian is responsible for the actual stone wall construction and that milecastles and the wall were
constructed simultaneously.21 Hodgson also proposed that the Vallum was used as a comunications
defense, to protect the Military Way that ran south of the wall. Although the rest of his ideas were
good, the Vallum would continue to be a thorn in the side of many wall investigators, right into the
20th century. The last man to write in what I have begun calling the 'Early Period' of wall
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20
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Bruce, 52
A History of the Problem, Collingwood 48-49
A History of the Problem, Collingwood 49
A History of the Problem, Collingwood 50
A History of the Problem, Collingwood 50
Nesbitt, Tolia-Kelly 379
A History of the Problem, Collingwood 55

investigation, which lasts until about 1860, is Henry Maclauchlan. In 1857-1858, Maclauchlan
published a large scale survey of the entire wall, with maps and his own personal memoir from the
experience. The description of the visible remains are impeccable, and Maclauchlan refrains from
creating or stating theories in his work; he only works with observable facts.22 It is his work
especially, combined with the work of his predecessors above, that would set the stage for the first
major authority on the history and archaeology of Hadrian's Wall: John Collingwood Bruce.

Bruce was born in 1805 in Newcastle Upon Tyne, and he played an extraordinarily large role
in romanticizing Hadrian's Wall and inspiring more people to study the massively important
structure.23 Bruce himself was not an archaeologist in the true sense of the term, rather he served
more as an interpreter of other people's work.24 Working extensively with the 1840s work of John
Hodgson and interpreting the excavated work of John Clayton, Bruce was responsible for one of the
most influential works of all time on the subject of Hadrian's Wall, called simply The Roman Wall.
22 A History of the Problem, Collingwood 56
23 Nesbitt, Tolia-Kelly 384
24 Study of Hadrian's Wall, Breeze 3

Bruce's own observations of the wall are limited to surface inspection or investigation of objects
unearthed by his predecessors, but that is not to downplay his role in the field.25 These tasks that he
laid out for himself of synthesizing the information that came before him, and augmenting it with
his own observations culminated in what would become a bible to students of the wall, and is still
being updated and revised for modern students today. Bruce took great care at documenting
exposed building foundations, as well as mapping as much of the surface layers of sites as he
could.26 Many of these sites mapped have either been excavated, and so the initial surface layer is
destroyed or altered, or they have been further robbed, worn, or destroyed from when Bruce did his
work, and so the drawing are of continued importance even now. Bruce was also the first
personality to give significant attention to the Fosse running north of the wall, which he identifies
as a further defensive obstacle present along the entire length, except where no benefit is to be
achieved, such as near the cliffs in the central section of the wall construction.27
His vast importance and contribution to the field of the study of the wall does not by any
means mean that he was entirely correct in his theories, however. Reading an early edition of book
now will result in somewhat typical historical writing of the 19th century: biased, racist, and
imperialist. Bruce maintains an image in his mind that is akin to many of those before him, that the
Romans ruled Britain with an iron fist, and that the uncivilized, Roman hating subjects were ready
to rebel and throw off the yoke of Roman oppression at any second.28 This view obviously shapes
his interpretation of evidence. The Vallum, as Bruce would tell it, is designed to prevent attack from
the rear, and he only briefly considers the possibility of it not being a contemporary structure to the
wall.29 It is a bit paradoxical then, that Bruce also proposes that the most important part of the wall
system itself is the Military Way; the Wall and the Vallum exist purely to protect the road.30
Although it is not entirely clear why someone who believed the structure to be first and foremost
defense against not only internal, but also external enemies would find the road to be the most
important part, it is also not entirely clear why a road would have such value to the Romans: the
only things that it connected were structures that were built simultaneously with the road itself, the
milecastles and the forts along the wall. Regardless of this seemingly gap of logic, Bruce took to
inspecting the roadway, spending a great deal of time observing the surface itself and pouring
through the material of those before him. After finding numerous inscriptions, Bruce was convinced
that the road and wall were constructed (overseen) by Aulus Platorius Nepos, a friend of Hadrian's
and provincial governor of Britain.31 This was, in fact, one of the first true moments where Bruce
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Bruce 101
Bruce 152
Bruce 55
Bruce 59
Bruce 58
Bruce 75
Bruce 16

whether intentionally or unintentionally synthesized archaeology and history together. Upon seeing
these plaques, he began sorting his source work and throwing out information saying that Septimius
Severus was responsible for building the wall, at that time a more common theory.32 Bruce's theory
goes on to say that Nepos, as governor, was the main overseer to the work and construction of the
wall. Underneath him were multiple gangs of laborers, each with their own Centurion having
personal command of a section of wall, which explains variation in wall thickness and detail.33
Although clearly fictitious and more story driven rather than factually sound, this sort of
imagination is what helped to carry Bruce's legacy so long, and helped to inspire so many others to
take up work on the wall after him. He paints a striking picture of a dilapidated structure, shrinking
ever more due to people even still, in the 1850s, taking stones away from exposed structures for
construction or repair, that it was the job of the people of Britain to save, as a piece of their national
identity and history.34 It was this period then, briefly with Hodgson and Maclauchlan but primarily
with Bruce, that began the first 100 year period of true scientific excavation, or in other terms,
what we today would recognize as archaeology over destruction and looting. In this period, from
roughly 1840 to 1940, the only excavation that was undertaken were those to answer a very specific
question, following the model of Bruce, and later the model of Collingwood.35 In the first half of
this period, dominated by Bruce himself until his death in 1892, the primary new information of
value to the community was that Hadrian was responsible for the actual wall construction, and not
just the Vallum, as previously thought, even though this view was only accepted by a minority of
scholars and students.36 It would be the second half of this period that fought tooth and nail against
the work of Bruce, with new names trying to establish themselves on the field and new evidence
overturning the old.
John Collingwood Bruce had such a command over early wall histories that it was only
immediately after his death that Gibson (1892), Haverfield (1894), and Bosanquet (1898) began
undertaking excavations and putting new theories about their finds out and into the world.37 Just
before the turn of the century, the view that Septimius Severus was the wall builder was still a
popular one, and Hadrian was still relegated to the territories of milecastles, forts, and the Vallum.38
This began to change when, in 1894, Professor Haverfield turned his attention to the Vallum itself,
and conducted the first scientific excavations on the mound there. A number of things were
determined with the work, many of which we would consider common knowledge now; at the time,
however, the Vallum remained the great mystery of the Great Wall, and no one had come up with an
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A History of the Problem, Collingwood 56

Bruce 55
Bruce 57
Study of Hadrian's Wall, Breeze 10
A History of the Problem, Collingwood 59
Study of Hadrian's Wall, Breeze 8
Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood 40, 42

adequate explanation. Haverfield determined a number of things and dispelled a great few
prominent theories at the time: The Vallum was not a road, never bore a pallisade wall, was
constructed all at once, was not of pre-Roman origin, and its form of constuction with raised
mounds on either side of a long ditch preclude it from being an effective defensive barrier aimed
towards the south.39 In essence, this excavation destroyed any theory that had any sort of credibility
up to this point. These finds, among others, led Haverfield to produce what would become known
as the Turf Wall Theory. This theory has a number of parts, but the most important of them are that
the turf wall, the first construction of Hadrian, stretched from Carlisle to Newcastle Upon Tyne.
This wall was then replaced by Severus, who was responsible for the stone wall works to match the
stone work of the forts. These forts (and the Vallum) were Hadriatic in origin, but were englarged
during the Severan construction projects, and the Vallum was used instead as a legal boundary rather
than possessing any sort of military function.40 By 1909, this view was the orthodox view of all
serious scholars of the wall, a significant difference from the theories of Bruce 50 years earlier.
Complementing the work of Haverfield were the excavations of Gibson in 1894, 1895, and
1898. In one of the most significant finds ever dug up on the wall, Gibson found 3 main occupation
layers corresponding to a watch tower along the wall, indicating 2 separate reconstructions.41 This
was the first conclusive evidence of a destruction and rebuilding found along the wall, and it went a
long way towards reconciling the various theories of the buildings of both Severus and Hadrian.
Thanks to further excavation of a milecastle in the vicinity of Poltross Burn in 1909, coin dating
found in situ with another 3 layer destruction confirmed the bottom layer of the stone milecastle,
and the stone wall built around it, to be Hadrian's.42 With this startling new development, and the
confirmation of a theory first put forth by the academic giant of Bruce, the 1910s saw the rise of a
better chronology surrounding Hadrian's Wall. Due to continued excavation of ditches and
construction patterns along the forts and the Vallum, a new theory of construction was emerging,
where the frontier was pioneered by small forts of stone, that were later enlarged into their current
area, and finally connected together through the construction of a wall as a final stage to the fort
frontier.43

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A History of the Problem, Collingwood 59-60

A History of the Problem, Collingwood 61
A History of the Problem, Collingwood 59
A History of the Problem, Collingwood 61
A History of the Problem, Collingwood 63

A typical milecastle along the wall- to the north is the Fosse, then the castle, with the
gate and tower and housing for 6 to 20 soldiers, followed by the Vallum. This picture has the
vallum too close to the castle, and lacks the military way that would have been present
between the two.

The Milecastle at Poltross Burn, Milecastle 4

With the trusted work of previous expeditions sufficiently upended, R.G. Collingwood
began to serve as a new interpreter of information regarding the wall during the 1920s, analyzing
the work of Simpson and Richmond in the same way as John Collingwood Bruce before him.44 The
work of the two decades on the wall gravitated around two central points: first, that it was essential
to pre 1920 theory that forts were found to be isolated constructions later joined together by the wall
itself, and second, and attempt to explain the Birdoswald turf wall; remnants of a turf construction
that were not ever fully replaced with stone.45 The first of these two questions would take the
primary role in the investigations to come over the next decade and a half.
In 1921, the general academic stance was that the forts themselves were originally free
standing structures, forward points on the Vallum frontier as described by Bede: the wall was added
later as a convenient afterthought.46 Collingwood believes that four new forts were laid out when
the wall was added to those forts already in existence. These forts, Stanwix at the west end, and
working eastwards Great Chesters, Carrawburgh, and ending with Newcastle on the east coast
(followed shortly thereafter by the eastern extension culminating in Wallsend), had caused a great
deal of controversy in the past. Collingwood had to contend with evidence that seemed to go against
the fort first theory, namely that at
Chesters, Haverfield had discovered a
ditch running east to west across the
length of the fort in 1900; if the wall was
planned, then earth causeways should
have been left in the future positions of
the walls of Chesters for construction,
marking the fort (or at least the extension)
as contemporary with the wall.47 In the
1921 to 1924 excavations, this bridge of
soil where the wall construction was to lay
was confirmed, showing planned and
contemporary expansion of preexisting
forts upon the construction of the wall at
Benwell, Rudchester, Halton Chesters,
Chesters, and Burgh-by-Sands.48 It is
notable that all of these forts share the
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45
46
47
48

Study of Hadrian's Wall, Breeze 10

Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood 41
Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood 41
Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood 42
Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood 44

method of connection to the wall show in the diagram of Chesters above, where they connect to the
wall via the south tower on their west and east gates, with the east, west, and north gates all being
on the northernmost side of the wall.
As excavations went on, more evidence continued to build for preexisting forts. At
Birdoswald, the wall abuts on the north fort wall at an awkward angle, and there are more fort
ditches found to underlie the wall construction.49 At Housesteads, the most well preserved of the
wall forts, the northeast corner tower of the fort was taken down and re-erected further west, to be at
a point where the wall joined the fort rampart.50 This later modification to the fort only makes sense
if the wall was an afterthought that was trying to be merged into the existing wall system at
Housesteads, otherwise constructing a tower in an incorrect location is a disastrous use of time and
manpower. Additionally, at Great Chesters, ditches that run parallel to the fort supposedly ran under
the wall, which had collapsed into them to fill in the ditch. It was later found, however, that the
ditches only ran half-way under, and formed a normal serious of butt-ends, allowing for the
construction of the wall above them.51 What we can see here then are construction markers that only
make sense if there is expansion that is planned ahead of time- although no necessarily expansion in
the form of a wall.
A number of other investigations were carried out simultaneously to the ones discussed
above. In 1923-1924, Dr. R.C. Shaw excavated two turrets along the wall (turret 48a/48b) and the
east abutment of the bridge that carried the wall over the river Irthing, specifically trying to
investigate the relationship between the wall (averaging, at the location, seven feet six inches thick)
with its foundation, which was eleven feet wide, obviously unnecessarily large.52 This would turn

Artist depiction of the Wall crossing the River Irthing

49
50
51
52

Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood 42

Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood 41
Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood 41-42
Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood 47

out to be due to the precursory nature of the laying of the foundation, before the wall itself was
moved from the broad wall to the narrow wall. Around 1927, more investigations were carried out
in the vicinity as well, this time focused on the 'Irthing Gap', a length of 4 Roman miles in the
middle of the wall constructed in the narrow fashion, between two other sections of broad wall
construction. This is thought to be a result of the gorge, a naturally extremely defensible position,
being left with its turf wall while construction on the broad wall continued on farther to the west.
Upon reaching the Irthing, where the wall was reduced from the broad to narrow style and
completed, the turf section was finally replaced by stone as one of the last pieces of the wall to be
replaced, being build up in the new, narrow style.53
Even these varied locations were not the end of the wide swaths of the wall that saw
excavation and investigation during the 1920s. Down the coast of Cumberland, an often neglected
portion of the Roman border system, and at fort locations of Beckfoot, Maryport, and Moresby
more digging was done. These forts are themselves not a part of the wall system, rather they are
inland forts that are supplementary to that system, and supplementary to to the signal stations
dotting the western Cumberland coast that Collingwood believed there was evidence found for.54
Evidence for these signal stations, he says, go as far south as Workington, and they would primarily
have been used to look for ships trying to cross the narrow bay in order to make it across the border.
Although they may have had signal fires to indicate for larger forces, they were most likely used for
policing to control smuggling, due to the tiny nature of the watch towers and their supporting forts:
the manpower in the local vicinity would only have been good enough to make arrests and fight the
tiniest of skirmishes, not push back any sort of large expedition. Curiously enough, although they
were looked for, no sign of signal stations of the same sort can be attested to on the east coast.55
The conclusions of the excavations of the 1920s is that the forts themselves along the wall
were of a military nature, meant to house more significant detachment of troops compared to their
milecastle counterparts.56 Additionally, these years piloted a method that was to be employed by
necessity on the rest of the wall, and in every excavation of the wall to come: something that
Collingwood terms selective excavation. The idea is that the whole 16 square miles of the wall
are surveyed intently, combined with the surveys of those that came before, and specific epicenters
of interest are chose to break soil at.57 The primary goal of this selective excavation was, according
to Collingwood, to establish the wall as the subject or unit of the dig, and to avoid a case study on
Housesteads, Birdoswald, or Chesterholm. A secondary goal of the excavations was to gather
masses of information, form theories from this information, and then use these theories to generate
53 Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood 52
54 Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood 58
55 Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood 58
56 Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood 47
57 Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood 37

further interest in the wall, to encourage future archaeologists to undertake the vast amount of work
that was still to be done.58 That is to say it was, in essence, a publicity stunt. This methodology
would turn out to offend later archaeologists of the 1930s due to the selective and incomplete
work on the wall during the 20s: they would have much rather had an excavation of a single site in
its entirety. The methods of the 20s are extremely important, however, because not only do they
bring to light and investigate many of the pervasive questions that the wall was posing scholars at
the time, they managed to (accidentally, I am sure) avoid the old archaeological attitude of
excavate in entirety, and so they luckily left later pieces of the same sites in tact for future
archaeologists, as is now standard practice.59 The only real fault of the 1920s work is that the
confidence with which it is reported bears much of the blame for the Age of Certainty that would
follow the 1930s, where scholars thought that there was no new significant information left to learn
through excavating the wall.
With this considered, we have the knowledge of Hadrian's Wall in 1931 standing thusly:
Scattered roman forts along the Stanegate were first occupied, and these were followed by the
Vallum frontier, which is now known to have predated the stone wall. Hadrian's Wall itself is a
proposed consequence of his visit in 121 CE to the frontier, and there are 4 clearly defined periods
now held in the academia of the 30s. Firstly, the construction to Maeatae, ended with northern
invasion and destruction. Secondly, a rebuilding by Septimius Severus, occupied until abandonment
of Allectus when he moved to oppose Constantius Chlorus. Thirdly, the restoration by Chlorus until
the Pictish war of 367, and finally, the last restoration of the wall by Theodosius c.370 CE until the
evacuation order was given by Magnus Maximus in 383 CE.60 It is with this time line set forth that
we can then dive into the excavations of the era.
In 1936, excavations at High House lead to the conclusions that the Vallum was an addition
to the wall system, made not earlier than the first set of forts, which it tends to skirt or avoid.61
Richmond argues that the Vallum was a barrier from the south, but not an outright defensive
installation. Instead, he says that its purpose was to prevent interference with the towers,
milecastles, and forts along the length of the wall from anyone who might wish to be involved in
subterfuge, an idea he proposed later in the 1940s, and was most likely shaped heavily from Britains
recent involvement in counter intelligence during the second world war.62 Another idea that
Richmond proposes is that the Vallum was instead used to block potential escape from the south,
before the wall itself was constructed. How does this theory, however, account for archaeologically
verified maintenance on an outdated fortification? It was with this theory in his mind that Richmond
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60
61
62

Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood 39

Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood 38
Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood 58-61
Richmond 51
Richmond 52

undertook investigations on the Military Way itself, trying to determine more about the roadway
through surface level examination and shallow excavation. Although not much turned up from the
expeditions, there were a number of dated milestones found along the roadway, the earliest of which
has the date of 213CE on it, dating it after the construction of the Vallum.63 Clearly it was not meant
to protect just the Military Way, and so Richmond was foiled by the same structure that foiled so
many before him.
By the 1940s a more complete picture of the structure of the wall itself was beginning to
emerge. A stone wall, ten feet thick, designed to run from Newcastle Upon Tyne to the Irthing, with
later extensions carried out with narrower construction to the west to Carlisle, and further 'capping'
construction projects in the west to Stanwix and in the east to Wallsend.64 More evidence did arise at
the beginning of the decade for the fort-first theory, however. At Greatchesters, the narrow wall
bonds with the broad wall, and beneath the first stretch of narrow wall can be found broad wall and
milecastle foundations. Only when construction moved from a broad wall to a narrow wall at this
site was this old milecastle, built to supplement the Vallum system and turf wall, upgraded to the
fort that we see today at the site of Greatchesters.65
Stratigraphy also began to emerge to add even more legitimacy to the multiple occupation
theory and time line put forward in the previous decade: Milefortlet 5 at Cardurnock was
completely excavated in 1944, and it showed a construction, reduced during the Antonine
occupation of Scotland, abandoned during the 3rd century, and reoccupied when Scotic raids from
Ireland became a pressing concern during the 4th century.66 Milecastle 79 showed significant
evidence for a Severan restoration: hard, white mortar at this location was matched with others and
determined for the first time to be indicative of the reconstructions of the turn of the 3rd century,
opposite the course, grained mortar that lacked enough lime that characterizes the initial
construction of the wall structures.67 The irregular spacing of the forts compared to milecastles and
towers was explained due to upgrading of milecastles and changing of construction patterns along
the thickness of the wall, and it was confirmed for the first time in 1948 that the wall ran straight
across the marsh in the west, further than ever thought previously.68 At the end of the 1940s then, we
have a somewhat changed view of the walls history: first, a barrier of earth patrolled by small
garrisons, similar to the German frontier. It then followed a planned evolution into a permanent,
heavily defended structure with sally ports, where roman soldiers could sally on either side of an
enemy and pin them against the wall itself as a trap, making tactical use of the Fosse in front.69 A
63
64
65
66
67
68
69

Richmond 56
Richmond 43
Richmond 44
Richmond 46-47
Richmond 50
Richmond 46
Richmond 45-46

good story, but as we will see, utter fantasy.

It was then that the final main phase of archaeology began to develop along the wall. These
excavations are characterized not by a picking and choosing of ideal sites, which did sometimes
happen, but more commonly took the form of rescue archaeology, meant to preserve a site or, at the
very least, to document its stratigraphy and contents before construction would remove that
section.70 Throughout the 1960s and the 1970s, this rescue work involved mostly small scale
excavations along the curtain wall itself, with little to note. A typical example of a dig is a 250
meter stretch that was dug in the late 1960s; 250 meters dug with only a three page report of
findings, scarce finds indeed.71
The 1980s, however, were much more conducive to new and interesting finds, and it is with
these excavations that we cement ourselves in the current theories and academia surrounding
Hadrian's Wall. Numerous new dig sites were opened, at locations such as Burgh-by-Sands, Steel
Rigg, Housesteads, and West Denton. For the first time, stone foundations were found underneath
sections of the western turf wall (Burgh-by-Sands), and pieces of plaster that was discovered as a
coating to the wall was found with grooves on the surface, to give the impression of ashlar
masonry.72

The Roman Fort at Burgh-by-Sands

70 Study of Hadrian's Wall, Breeze 13
71 Crow 52
72 Crow 52

The digging in the 80s also tended to have new focal points than just sections of wall;
towers, forts, and milecastles all became the preferred excavation locations even more so than
before, and random sections of wall digging as had been common from the 1940s to the 1970s was
shunned almost completely. With this change in methodology, a new find came as a result (or
perhaps, because of?). Archaeologists began noticing that there was a shift in the focus of the
construction of the wall as well, from early on where it was the wall itself (the broad, eastern wall)
to the forts, milecastles, and towers.73 It was this that was the culprit for the overbuild foundations
that can be seen along the narrow wall until the Rive Irthing. It was with these excavations as well
that the aforementioned plaster and white wash coating of the walls began to be discovered as well,
at Peel Gap.74
The final and most important outcome of these modern diggings was the conclusion that
Hadrianic and Severan constructions were distinguishable by the wall core: Hadrian's building was
done with a core containing no mortal, only soil and rubble, while later Severan reconstructions
contained a much better, extremely hard lime mortar in its cores.75 This has led to the idea that
differences in core construction, and the massive difference in quality, was a symptom of the wall
always having intended to be reconstructed, and the early Hadrianic construction was meant to be
replaced and expanded upon just as the earlier turf wall had been.76

The Famous Milecastle 39, near Steel Rigg

73
74
75
76

Crow 62
Crow 59
Crow 55
Crow 57

The findings of the 1980s and 1990s additionally helped to confirm the multipurpose nature
of milecastle gateways.77 They could obviously have been used for any of maintenance, trade, or
sorties into enemy territory, but now the question was which of these three most likely roles was
most heavily emphasized. The one that we can rule out with almost complete certainty is the
function of milecastle gateways as primarily military in use. There are simply too high a number of
too small gateways to be constructed with the military in mind- a handful of large, multiple meter
gateways would be much more useful to a legion wishing to march out.78 More likely these
gateways were to control the movement of people and goods, as is typical Hadrianic practice during
his reign: increase the wealth of the frontier provinces through trade with extra-roman peoples. In
this capacity, the wall is little more than an ancient toll booth. Additionally, the view from many
watch towers along the wall actually leaves quite a bit to be desired, and many would have
functioned as poor lookout points.79 Somehow, however, John Collingwood Bruce's initial
interpretation of the wall as primarily being a defensive structure has survived into the hearts and
minds of many modern people, despite mounting evidence against it.
Today, archaeology is an ongoing practice at the wall, and while perhaps not in the scale that
some would like, it can be accessible to just about anyone. Earthwatch, a program that most
frequently runs to trips to other parts of the world for environmental activism and education, also
helps run a program where prospective people who are interested in archaeology get to dig at a site
east of Wallsend, on the south bank of the Tyne.80 This settlement, a periphery area of one of the
Roman forts, is characteristic of areas that are currently being investigated- little to no work before
the last 20 years has been done on a sociological or anthropological level, and so the investigation
of periphery towns hopes to bring in new information about how the wall interacted with the people
living nearby. By paying them money to go and work at their site, a practice some might call
questionable, you can get good opportunities to pursue career exploration and to get field
experience, something that would be archaeologists can have a harder time finding than you might
think. There are about 25 people on the site, and it has begun to produce a wealth of information
that will be more closely analyzed in the coming years, such as jewelry (including a bronze
necklace piece found by Erin herself), riveted chain mail, and a pagan altar to a previously unknown
goddess.81 Overall, the two week program promotes archaeology and archaeological excavation,
helps to facilitate growth in the field, and works to help academics dig for more material in
unexplored areas of the wall's history, quite an efficient relationship.
Like all things, it is clear how the history of the archaeology of Hadrian's Wall is both of
77
78
79
80
81

Some Problems, Breeze and Dobson 187

Some Problems, Breeze and Dobson 188
Study of Hadrian's Wall, Breeze 6
Kelso
Kelso

product of the time in which it was written, and also a synthesis of new information that is always
reconciled and combined with information from those that came before us. Our thoughts on the wall
today have changed remarkably from the imperialistic notions of John Collingwood Bruce in the
1850s, although it is still easy to see the mark that he made on the study of the wall through his
publishings, still being used in revised forms today, and through his theories, which consciously or
subconsciously shape how we view the wall and its function. It is clear, however, that with better
methodology of more recent excavations, and more information found, we are working closer to an
accurate and coherent answer. In his conclusion, Collingwood speaks of the dangers of nonmethodical history, the need for being thorough and applying scientific methodology and precision,
and the need to break down complex issues like the wall and investigate them in pieces as
objectively as possible.82 He is right, of course, and it is this objectivity that has gotten us where we
are today with our studies. Archaeology along the wall is actually a much better history than that of
archaeology found elsewhere in much of the world; it avoids titanic disaster like figures such as
Schliemann, who ended up destroying far more than excavating, and it is because of the
competence of the men documenting and working at excavating the wall throughout the years that
we are left with a monument still in as complete a shape as it is, truly one of Britain's most
cherished national landmarks. Through the work of these academic giants, it is quite clear to us
today that the wall did much more than simply separate the Romans from the Barbarians.83

82 Hadrian's Wall, Collingwood 62

83 Historia Augusta

Works Cited
Breeze, David J., and Brian Dobson. "Hadrian's Wall: Some Problems." Britannia 3 (1972): 182208. JSTOR. Web. 6 Oct. 2014. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/526026>.
Breeze, David J. "John Collingwood Bruce and the Study of Hadrian's Wall." Britannia 34 (2003):
1-18. Web. 6 Oct. 2014. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3558534>.
Bruce, J. Collingwood. The Roman Wall, a Description of the Mural Barrier of the North of
England. London: Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer, 1867. Print.
Collingwood, R. G. "Hadrian's Wall: 19211930." Journal of Roman Studies 21.01 (1931): 36-64.
Web.
Collingwood, R. G. "Hadrian's Wall: A History of the Problem." Journal of Roman Studies 11
(1921): 37-66. Web. 6 Oct. 2014.
Crow, J. G. "A Rewview of Current Research on the Turrets and Curtain of Hadrian's
Wall."Britannia 22 (1991): 51-63. JSTOR. Web. 6 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/526630>.
"Experience with Earthwatch at Wallsend." Personal interview. 6 Nov. 2014.
Nesbitt, C., and D. Tolia-Kelly. "Hadrian's Wall: Embodied Archaeologies of the Linear
Monument." Journal of Social Archaeology 9.3 (2009): 368-90. JSTOR. Web. 6 Oct. 2014.
Richmond, I. A. "Hadrian's Wall, 19391949." Journal of Roman Studies 40.1-2 (1950): 43-56.
Web. 6 Oct. 2014.
Picture Credit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrian%27s_Wall
http://followinghadrian.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/wall_path_map_lg.png
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/images/paintings/hmc/large/ou_hmc_pn41_large.jpg
http://newlancswalker.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/2012-02-11-11-46-37.jpg
http://www.northofthetyne.co.uk/Images/cameraHome/First-plan-Wall-Devine--001.jpg
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/content/properties/willowford-wall-turrets-and-bridge-hadrianswall/portico/reconstruction-of-willowford-bridge.jpg
http://www.theromangaskproject.org.uk/Media/graphics/AnRpt08/Fig11-stane.jpg