Hadrian's Wall

We spent this weekend up at Hadrian's Wall and at some other ruins in the north of England. It's one thing to think about a wall across the entire country (the northern extent of the Roman Empire around the 170's AD), but to see the workmanship, and width of it, and the landscape it travels through, and all of the milecastles and manpower that went into it was something else!

 

We walked along several kilometers of the wall (some people will go on week-long walking journeys coast to coast!). We visited several forts and ruins of old Roman milecastles and turrets, and were lucky to have wonderful weather (nicer than in many parts of Canada this weekend, we hear!)

Justin wondered if these sheep know they're eating inside the ruins of 1800 year old army barracks. The sheep had no comment.

Along the way, Justin was delighted to find that he has long-lost Roman engineer ancestors.

We also visited a semi-ruined priory in the same area. It was built by taking stones from the ruins of the wall in the 1100's or so (this was common - and why the wall is no longer 15-20 feet tall as it is thought to have been) and even all these years later, it was incredible to see.

"...and the rest..."
(See less ornate inscription in the darker stone below)

This was one of my favourite displays. The cross outside which had been carved in Latin for the church in 1214 (the bottom half) was knocked down and used to build a child's gravestone in the graveyard. The top inscription reads "... who was buried ye 20 July 1657 2d yere of his age."  They later found this piece of stone being used for a barn in the area. No one ever accused the Brits of being poor recyclers!

 To break up the drive home, we stopped in Manchester. We had sushi at this neat place with a moving conveyor belt of food items. It made dinner feel like a game show! The two-person lift to the bathrooms upstairs helped maintain this atmosphere.

And now it's time for bed. Tomorrow we're going to try and figure out how to post the audio file we took today - anyone ever heard 13th century church acoustics?