American Reacts to Hadrian’s Wall: the UK's Ancient Roman Fortification
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In this video I react to Hadrian's wall for the first time. I was intrigued to learn about this ancient Roman wall, especially after my recent reaction to the sycamore gap tree that was cut down along its path. Hadrian's Wall is truly a remarkable structure, spanning an incredible 73 miles and stretching almost across the entirety of Great Britain.
It's mind-boggling to think that construction began in 122 AD and was completed in just six years! Join me on this journey as we explore the fascinating history and impressive scale of Hadrian's Wall.
Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this reaction please give this video a thumbs up, share your thoughts in the comments and click the subscribe button to follow my journey to learn about my British and Irish ancestry.
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Some commenters are complaining that Steve pauses to ask questions that are going to be answered/talks over.
So what.
It's a reaction channel & he's reacting.
The original videos are always linked & if people haven't already seen them, his enthusiasm, interest & amazement would surely make you want to.
I love Steve's reactions & many a time I've sought out other vids about history etc in Britain/Yorkshire after seeing one of his vids.
Appreciate that! My thoughts exactly. :) And yes, I always link the original in the description for those interested in seeing the full, original video uninterrupted.
You're Welcome.@@reactingtomyroots
I think my dad could do a reaction channel, He talks over everything. lol
I agree absolutley its what keeps me coming to watch his videos his enjoyment and astonishment helps make us all see our country through new eyes so keep them coming steve
Steve does do this, but generally he's asking interesting (and interested) questions. There are *far* worse than Steve (I won't name him) who spend time just saying "huh? I don't get it" when if they left it two seconds all would be revealed. Keep doin' what you're doin', Steve!
If you think the forts are old you should check out the settlement found at Skara Brae in Orkney which dates back to Neolithic times and is older than Stonehenge. Its mind blowing!
Well said, I believe dated to around 12000 yrs old🏴🏴 Peace and Love 😊
I think I've had that suggested before, but I'll have to check it out. Sounds like something I'd like! Thanks :)
@@reactingtomyroots no problem 😊
It’s incredible that the built-in furniture is still in place, also love the nearby and even older Knap of Howar on Papa Westray (Orkney Islands) dating back to about 3500 bc, thought to be the oldest preserved standing building in Northern Europe.
@@MsSpiralmonkey we think we're so clever these days but those who made these had none of the equipment of today. They were truly intelligent and creative.
Simon really skipped over the Vinlandia tablets. In fact there were over 1,600 of these documents that were in a midden and gave an amazing view of life at the time. There were letters back and forward to soldier's families back in Rome, asking for things like fresh socks to be sent and love letters to their wives, military documents etc. There was even correspondence between two slaves discussing preparations for the Saturnalia festival. (This proved that roman slaves were quite literate). The letters really humanised the soldiers - they were just like us with the same want's and needs.
*Vindolanda
@@redceltnet Sorry, I don't speak Latin!
@@DruncanUKgrow up
They showed squaddies haven't really changed in 2000+ years
Simon’s history is decidedly sketchy. What with all that talk about Picts; let alone Hadrian’s Wall being the Scottish Border - pshaw and harrumph! Viva Northumberland!
As a local of Northumberland, I can confirm that the wall is still impressive despite being not as tall as it used to be, in a place called Housesteads there is a Roman fort with even public toilets made of stone still being where they were built.
Another local here. I totally agree, but losing the sycamore tree was tragic
@@loopyloo788 damn right i just found out about that, it pissed me off hope the twats who did get found
@@peteramaranth85 They’ve been caught. A 16 year old and a sixty year old. It’s all very odd. Such a totally random thing to do. I hope they throw the pair of them in jail.
@@loopyloo788no one's been caught suspects
Recommend the BBC Documentary Time-watch Hadrian’s wall - the complete story . Yes the wall was much taller than today and had forts built every couple of miles. Hadrian’s wall is in England 🇬🇧💫
Thanks for the recommendation...I'll check it out 🙏🏻
🏴 😉
The wall is entirely within England, although its close to the border in the West. Much of the Western part was built of Turf not stone so is hard to find.
It was supported on both ends by coastal forts to prevent people sailing around it. It also had forts on the river crossings south and a road north that also had a big fort which was maintained for decades after the wall was built as a forward position.
The walls had 2000 years of farmers stealing the stone so its very low now.
I dont know why he chose Chesters fort as theres a few much better preserved ones he didnt mention.
The vindolanda tablets are in the British Museum and are fascinating, more come to light ever so often. The birthdat party invite is special as its between two women and one of them has written a P.S. on it herself. The oldest known handwriting by a woman ever.
I believe that most of the stone was robbed over the last few hundred years as, prior to that date, not many stone buildings were built (the exceptions were churches e.g Hexham Abbey): buildings were of wood (wattle and daub). Also stone was not used for field boundaeies.
@@MrBulky992 depends on the area. Those close to coasts on either end in particular.. theres a lot of old stone churches, tower houses and the like. Binchester lost most of its stone very early for a 7th century church and medieval manor house for example.
@@martynnotman3467I assume that's the church at Escomb (which I have visited) but churches in Anglo-Saxon times were quite small (even Hexham) as Escomb is so we're not talking about a vast amount of stone. Tower houses weren't built until the later medieval times (1100s onwards) which fits with what I was saying. The bulk of roman stone disappeared after 1500 as people started fencing off agricultural land. They were still doing so in the mid-19th century when John Clayton told them to stop. The reconstruction of an Anglian settlement at Jarrow contains no stone and is not very far from the coast.
@@MrBulky992 By "last few hundred years" i was assuming you were talking 18th century onwards not 12th century though!
I think its more a case of AS building with the materials they were used to. You rarely see them build in stone anywhere even with huge Roman cities next door to them. Look at London where they basically ignored the city and built their own next door.
Wow, definitely sounds like a place I'd be interested in seeing!
Hi Steve .. Yes these isles are steeped in history, much of it very ancient. Imagine that when Hadrian's wall was built, many structures in the British isles already stood for thousands of years before the Romans even existed. 🇬🇧❤🇺🇸
Hadrian's Wall, with a maximum height of about 15 feet (4.6 metres), was 10 Roman feet (3 metres) wide, wide enough for there to have been a walkway along the top,
It’s thought to have taken three legions of infantrymen from the army of Britain around six years to complete the Wall. Each legion was around 5,000 men strong. It ended in part of Newcastle on the river Tyne which is still called Wallsend.
"Wallsend" signifies the end of Hadrian's wall, that I didn't know - learn something new everyday,
When you look at the location of the Antonine Wall, it is exactly at the narrowest land width found in Scotland. What is impressive (given their mapping standards at the time) is the Romans *knowing* that.
Perhaps they had a VERY long piece of string? 🤔 😉
Wow, yes. They must have conducted some extensive scouting beforehand. Didn't they plot things out by posting individuals along a line of sight at specific distances? How did they know where to start and where they were aiming for?
I’m not that far away from Hadrian’s wall and have visited often. Chester’s fort mentioned in the video is fascinating, you can even see how the plumbing of the bath house worked. It’s well worth a visit, or even several visits.
Almost all of the questions that you ask during these videos are actually answered within the video, you accasionally actually talk over the answers that you are asking for! One example is your question about who actually built Hadrian's Wall and the ditch which follows it , he explains at the beginning that it was built by the soldiers of the 3 Legions listed in his "Construction" section.
I think that would be my only critism of some of his videos. I like that he lets us know what information he wants to learn from the video beforehand but sometimes he pauses it a bit too often during it and as you say, ends up missing the answer to the question he wanted to know.
It's a minor thing though and hopefully something he can easily fix if he chooses to. He's much less annoying than some reactors at least :D
I have to agree, so many times I’ve said to the screen, “your talking over the answer Steve”
I'm sure Roman soldiers did not build the wall & ditch alone. With the Romans being one of the biggest civilisations to enslave other peoples in history, it is most probable that enslaved Britons were the backbone of the work.
@@patriciakeogh5008 - Steve is too busy going 'Wow' when important facts are revealed 🤫
I agree, he isn't as bad as a number of other contributors, there are a couple who I have had to stop watching because they are so annoying! @@faithpearlgenied-a5517
Steve you always make me smile at how astonished you are with the videos you watch, especially on British History. You are always very enthusiastic and amazed by what you see 🙂💕
Me too.. I love his enthusiasm and yes it always makes me smile😊
Thank you! I appreciate the kind words. :)
I live on Hadrian's Wall and have a Degree in Archaeology from Newcastle University, when the Universal was the main research body on the wall. (This has now moved to Edinburgh).
We know very little about Hadrian's Wall from the historical records, they simply don't exist so everything we know comes from the Archaeology.
We don't know why the wall was built, but we can speculate based on what we know about Roman military organisation and also the Archaeology.
30 years ago, when I was a student, the thought was that it was primarily a taxation boundary. Other speculation included guving the Legions sometging ti do, Hadrian famously called a halt to further Roman expansion whuch, in turn created a problem. He needed the legions to police the empire but those Legionairres needed tk be occupied and their primary activity was civil engineering. Roads, aqueducts, forts and frontiers. So it is quite possiblw that it was built to 'keep the men busy'... at the same time the German, Numidian and Syrian borders were also fortified. The precious 100 years had seen cicil war caused by rebellions of the legions stationed on the frontiers, so keeping the men busy may have been a political strategy.
That said, over the last 10 years several excavations indicate that its function was military, to control the flow of people across a border. Those excavations indicate that the wall.was breached several times in the third C, and that rebellion by the northern tribes within the wall was a real danger.
The Brigantes's land was bisected by the wall. The analogy would perhaps be similar to the Khyber pass in Afghanistan and the challenges the British, Russian and Coalition have had over the last 200 years, in managing the overspill of extremely warlike and independently minded locals.
Backing the military function up is the number of legions stationed in Britain... it had the greatest concentration in the empire, even more than the highly dangerous German and Dacian (Romanian) frontiers.
It was incredibly expensive to conquered and maintain Britannia. However, the righ agricultural lands and, most importantly the silver, copper and tin mines, especially silver and tin, which is needed for bronze, a hugely important metal for technologies of the time and one that is only found in 2 locations in western Europe, Britain being one. The silver mines of Britain were very important to the economy but became exhausted.
The Romans did circumnavigate what we now call Scotland and under Julius Agricola, they invaded and beat the Caledonian Tribes, however, the challenge of garissoning a hostile mountainous terrain, of dubious economic value to pre industrial economies, were as challenging to the Romans as they were to the Scottish, and later British governments. The Highlands were only brought under the control of the former by King James IV of Scotland in the late 1400s. The Romans obviously decided it wasn't worth it.
Obviously a second wall was built by Antonius within an few decades of Hadrian's Wall, bisecting the island at the Forth to Clyde isthmus which is only about 40 miles and the narrowest part of the island. The lands it encompassed are of agricultural and mineral value and Antonius no doubt needed the land to settle retired legionairres on (the deal was 25 years service and you got a farm) with Hadrian's moratorium on expansion then how were these soldiers meant to be compensated? However, the expansion didn't last long and the Empire retreated back to Hadrian's Wall. Why? Almost certainly the cost and challenge of subduing local tribes who were decidedly unhappy with this expansion.
Wow, it must be cold living _on_ Hadrian's wall😉
Invitation to a birthday party in 100AD? I think we're too late, Steve, unless you have a time travel machine!
It's economically impossible to run a taxation system with an open border to an area with no taxes. The wall had to be built to enable that. As it crossed a tribal territory it makes sense that they kept the locals happy by promising crossing points at set intervals even if they didn't make sense. The Vallum ditch to the rear was to me clearly a demarcation line to stop the military grazing animal stock disappearing overnight and to create a no go area for suspicious looking tribesmen. There's a good chance lowland Scotland was not occupied and the Antonine wall was abandoned due to plague or the damp weather and very cold winters making regular local supply of grain and food tenuous and sea transport difficult. I can also imagine snow dunes reaching over any walls they built in Scotland. btw Elizabeth the first had similar problems applying taxes in the border area and suppressing Scottish clan raids and did consider building a wall. She didn't have a standing army or fiscal strength to do it.
@theotherside8258 we have no evidence at all why the Antoine wall was built or abandoned, mere speculation.
Elizabeth the first didn't rule the Scottish Borders, you are conflating the border reiver families of the Anglo Scottish border with Highland Clans, the two were very different. Elizabeth had more difficulties in policing her side of the border than she did the Scottish side. In the 1590s Kilmont Willie Armstrong led a raid over the border to Penrith, seized several hundred cattle and when riding back north was chased by the English Royal garrison from Carlisle, which he led into an ambush, by Grahams (an English reiver family) who murdered several of the garrison and allowed Armstrong to escape over the border. The Grahams were on his payroll. The 'border' is a modern concept, the people who lived on it had more loyalty to kin and friends on the other side than they did to London or Edinburgh. This was such a problem that both England and Scotland banned cross border marriages on pain of death and there are several stories of executions of husband's and wives who had ignored this law. The most notorious being in Haltwhistle in the 1580s.
A few years after the Penrith raid, Armstrong burned the Tynedale village of Haydon Bridge, again with English allies.
James VI of Scotland attempted to suppress the reivers by surrounding the town of Selkirk during a market day (when the various families held a truce) his soldiers intercepted several well known reivers as they left the market and, Scot and English alike, were dragged to the river where they were extra judicially executed by drowning in an example of what was known as 'Jeddart (local dialect for Jedburgh, a border town) Justice ' .
The various attempts by the governments of Elizabeth and James did nothing to stop the independent lawlessness of the area or the very powerful robber barons who controlled it and it was not until 1603 when James ascended to the English throne that we start to see the end of the reiver era which had lasted 300 years. James's policy of appointing selected of these robber barons to police the area and enforce the law, that was eventually successful.
I would recommend you read 'The Steel Bonnets' by George Macdonald Fraser, the definitive history of the Reivers.
@theotherside8258 lastly, ypu don't build a 30ft high, 6 ft wide wall 73 miles long to control taxation. Not in the ancient world and the costs of such a wall would vastly outweigh the taxation revenue. Dont fall into the trap of applying modern ideas on what a 'border' is to the ancient, or indeed, the Elizabethan world. As already mentioned, the theory that the wall was primarily a taxation tool (popular in the 1980s and early 90s) has been largely discredited due to the amount of subsequent evidence suggesting there were many more incidents of tribal incursion and rebellion than was previously thought.
If you are very interested in Roman Frontiers, the leading scholar is Dr Jim Crow of Edinburgh University and previously Newcastle University who has published extensively on the subject, in particular on Hadrian's Wall.
The wall we see today is only the foundations, much of it was robbed and used to build buildings elsewhere. It was about 10-15 ft high and much of it was built on top on a volcanic feature called the Whin Sill which create volcanic cliffs which add extra height.
I grew up in the North East of England and remember school trips to Hadrian’s Wall; specifically Vindalanda and seeing the lay outs of the buildings etc was just fascinating and really something well worth experiencing and listening to the facts and stories of how people lived there as well as the construction etc
Lovely part of the world, if you get lucky with the weather it’s also a much nicer experience too!
Sounds like an awesome place to experience firsthand!
The Roman soldiers generally did their own engineering works and were incredibly good at it. Take the battle of Alesia (in modern day France) where in about a month they built two parallel wooden pallisades stretching 25 miles, the inner to keep the Gallic army they were beseiging in, and the outer to keep the relief army coming to their rescue out.
It’s something we learn about in schools in the UK . Or did when I was at school anyway
I live close to Hadrian's wall, just north of it, but in England. There's not much of it left in this area. In a lot of places the stone was taken from the wall to use as a building material, so the surviving stretches are mainly in more remote areas.
Occupied southern Scotland
True the Vallum would have taken a lot of manpower to dig, never mind the wall. Get this dude, the canal system in the UK is roughly a similar width but deeper (on construction) than the Vallum and between 1770 to 1830 over 3500 miles was constructed in much the same way as the Romans dug the Vallum.
The Vindolanda Tablets are an incredible archaeological find giving an insight into life at the time. The birthday party invitation that is mentioned in the video is actually (I believe) the earliest example of a woman's handwriting found in the UK.
For old English documents you could look for videos on the Domesday book.
Check out the uffington horse if you want to have your mind blown by the age of construction of a structure , Hadrians wall is almost modern by comparison .
There are numerous documentaries on Vindolanda, and the Vindolanda tablets on You Tube. Well worth a watch! Each summer further parts of Vindolanda are excavated and they are still making lots of discoveries each year. Much of the stone from Hadrian's Wall was used to build (mostly) churches in Northumberland, most notably Hexham Abbey. The wall runs from Bowness-on-Solway to Wallsend, and stops short of the coast because of the River Tyne's estuary. There was also a major roman fort/settlement on the south bank of the Tyne at the coast - Arbeia - at what is now South Shields. As an aside, the Metro Station at Wallsend has bilingual signage - in English and Latin!
I'd recommend you see if you can find something on the Roman Baths in Bath, Somerset, largely still operating and fed from hot springs. It'll bring it to life quite a bit more than the ruins you've seen so far.
I love your enthusiasm and interest in my country. Always love your videos and I actually learn something about my own country too.
True,100% i'am from BE.and following Steve for a wile, he is still learning and that is a good thing, openminded! hope all that input sticks with him. We in EU have more history lessons over UK than in US i believe but also still learning over your beatiful coutry.
Hi Helen! I appreciate that. :)
I used to work as a tour guide at the museum which shows up in the video at 19:28. It's the exhibit for the Antonine Wall and the large slabs around the room are the distance markers which were placed along the wall and feature writing about who built it and some have some pretty cool carvings as well of Roman gods and 'barbarian' prisoners. There were also a lot of artefacts found on digs along the wall. Of all the people I gave talks to none of them had heard of the wall before they arrived, even those from Scotland. One person actually lived only a few miles from the wall and had never heard of it! There's pretty much nothing left of it now apart from a large ditch and a few forts, so its profile is much lower than that of Hadrian's Wall.
This was also built across the line of a geologic fault called the Whin Sill that cuts through Durham, Northumberland and Cumbria and is the fault that occurred when the British Isles was pulled away from the American mainland, many years ago. It is a great experience towalk along the wall and Vindolanda is really interesting. The museum there is brilliantly done and those tablets of writing are quite poignant. They are on show with a translation underneath. You would love the museum. It clearly shows how the Romans lived.
Roman walls and forts were robbed regularly to reuse the stone. Near where I live in Essex there was a Roman fort along the river Blackwater, out on the coast where it meets the North Sea, but the stone was scavenged from the fort to build a little chapel, St. Peter's on the Wall, at Bradwell on Sea. Its very pretty, especially inside and quite atmospheric. It was finished in 662 and is one of the oldest intact churches in England. Services are still performed there regularly. You can google it.
Very interesting! I would love to see all that in person.
3 Things that I dont think were mentioned that I learned at Uni
1. The wall bricks were taken and used to build homes in the community a few hundreds of years ago which is why they height has reduced.
2. One reason the wall may have been built is to keep the soldiers occupied and out of mischief whilst stationed up there, though many ended up integrating into british life and this led to the 'Romano British' era
4, They wore a winter version of roman soldier clothes
@jennx9091: quite so! However, re’ ‘3’ - a small point, but: many Romano Brits left with the Romans, to defend Rome - although recent genetic mapping shows almost no genetic signature heritage whatsoever. Therefore, either every Romano-Brit left with the Legions; or else, there was significantly less integration than was once thought to be the case. The only provable integration, occurring amongst the Northern, cavalry contingents, who originated from Northern European tribes.
Or the fact that they were all European meant you couldn't differentiate between the two? @@MrPercy112
@jennd9091: there are noticeable differences, as genetic markers also signify the time of genetic incorporation. Thus, allowing measurement of genetic changes, both here in Britain and in Europe. It’s bit like taking fingerprints; but with the addition of a clock. 😁
If 2 was true i don't know if they would have kept it manned for 300 years whilst the empire was threatened in other lands. I think the empire would have had a million ways to keep soldiers busy.
Thanks, that does make sense!
I've never visited any part of Hadrian's Wall, but I have visited parts of the Antonine wall (since I'm just a few miles north of where it starts at Old Kilpatrick (which is where my mum's family is from!)). Glasgow University currently has an amazing exhibit about the Antonine Wall which I visited recently with a friend from Indiana. The University might have put some videos up about it.
I live in Falkirk in central Scotland and the Antonine wall runs right through the town. I actually frequently cross it on my bike and the vallum is fully visible in places.
I have been to Vindolanda - it was truly awesome and well worth visiting. I've also been to Jarlshof in the Shetland Isles, a 2,500 BC viking settlement worth a visit. Tony Robinson's Time Team programme is a great source of such places, both ancient and not so ancient. The UK countryside is littered with the fascinating remains of such places. Yes, you need to come here and experience them, Steve, you will never forget them.
I have no doubt it would be a memorable trip, for sure!
The area of the wall in places was very hilly, so quite a bit of the wall was built at the top of the high points, so they didn't need ditches along those parts.
You might want to find videos travelling the length of the wall to see the terrain
There are many Roman Walls throughout Europe. When I was in Germany in 1972, the city my family lived in has one reconstructed Roman fort called Saarburg and it is very impressive. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saalburg
Great to see a reaction to Hadrian’s Wall, spent months researching Vindolanda’s writing tablets for my uni dissertation!
Steve, you will probably also be interested in the old Hill Forts that are to found across Britain, such as Maiden Castle in Dorset, and near to me, Cissbury and Chanctonbury Rings. These Hill Forts often pre date the Roman occupation by hundreds or thousands of years, and are still often very impressive.
The theft of stone from old buildings is not that unusual. Not to far from me are the remains of a Castle that has been reduced to little more that the stump of the Keep. The stone was taken for the construction of local buildings and roads.
You'll find remnants of the Roman's all over the country , near me is lullingstone villa 4th century in southern part of England with fantastic mosaics to view . Britain is literally littered with Historic sites . 😊
I lived in Wallsend for most of my life, the roman name for Wallsend was Segedunum…….its were the wall ended on the River Tyne near Newcastle upon Tyne
Documents, magna carta, doomsday book, Lindisfarne bible. off the top of me head, there will be others and off course the Bayeux Tapistry is itself a document. Roman Letters do exist and there must be a plethera of old legal documents'
to answer your question of the dimensions of the wall, at the time it was completed, it stood 15 roman feet high, and was 4 roman feet thick, in more modern terms it was around 10 feet high and 2-3 feet thick, with a guardhouse at every mile marker along the wall with a beacon shout it be required to warn others along the wall on guard duty of trouble, after the collapse of the roman empire in Britain the wall was partially dismantled and the stone from the wall distributed around different villages and settlements to use as building materials for housing and such, which is why all that's left of the once mighty wall is the waist height portions at best, or completely removed sections at worst.
Syamore Gap is on the Pennine Way hiking Route from Edale in the Midlands to Kirk Yetholme in Scotland, a distance of 268 miles and takes (on average) two week to hike it. I know I have completed it twice, once in each direction. Tony in Essex England
The wall was approx 16 feet tall and wide enough for 4 men to walk side by side with gateways approx every Mile, most of the stone from the wall was later used for local Farms buildongs and Farm Houses, but it was NOT just the wall, but defensive ditches either side of it and it was mainly built on the ridge line of the surrounding hills, with a Mile Castle(Tower) every Roman Mile and smaller Towers every half mile. Tony in Essex England
The main road from south to scotland, now known as th A1 is also called the roman road and watling street, first laid by the romans. The were very good at navigating straight roads
3 roman legions were allocated by Hadrian so would be approximately 15,000 troops plus specialist engineers attached to each legion - added bonus of keeping the troops busy and out of trouble! The Romans never bothered about who owned land in the provinces and the wall did cut thorough the territory of the local tribe the Brigantes. Some historians now think its construction apart from defence and movement control for tax purposes, was also to weaken that tribes influence in Britannia.
In the film Gladiator, the intro states that the Roman Empire extended from Africa to the English border. He is referring to Hadrian's wall but there was no English border (or England) at that time because the 'English' were still living in Denmark and Germany.
There were Britons living here long before any invaders came .
You need to watch a video of the excavations of Vindolanda - fascinating Steve 🏴
I have visited the fort at Vindolanda. Some of the excavated exhibits there include a woman's wig, a crest from a soldier's helmet, a piece of fabric from a uniform and many leather shoes from that time. Apparently, the soil there is an excellent preservative.
Wow, that's pretty cool
At Wallsend, which is the town at the eastern end of the wall, the local Metro station has signage in English and Latin (just in case any Romans come back!).
Only just found your channel Steve and have only watched a couple of your films. Love your enthusiasm for our UK history, great stuff.
Welcome aboard! Appreciate that.
The wall didn't need to get all the way to the east coast, the wall ends at the river Tyne where the river was too deep and wide to cross causing a natural barrier.
Plus they built Arbeia fort to defend mouth of Tyne.
Hello from the Western end of the defences. On the east end of the coast is mostly cliffs and there is no easy place to sneak round the end. But on the western end the land is low and flat and the Scottish coast is just a few miles away, directly facing what is now England across an inlet call the Solway Firth. To stop anyone going round the defences or crossing from the opposite coast, the line of forts was continued down the coast to the town of Alauna ( modern day Maryport, Cumbria ) which was the major supply port for the western part of the wall and its defenders. The fort at Maryport can still be traced on the ground and the museum here has some amazing displays of Roman altars and such. Many of the smaller Milecastles can be seen and many of the roads here are built on top of the original Roman roads. You would really enjoy a visit to this part of the country as you have the Northern part of England and the Southern part of Scotland easily accessible.
The wall only goes as far as Wallsend (walls end!) on the East which is where my granny was born.
It's a beautiful site and one we've visited, and walked, many times
At Vindolanda they are still digging every summer - new tablets were found this year. A lot of the digging is done by volunteers under the the supervision of archaeologists. There are a number of forts on site - one on top of the other.
The further back in history you get the less and less we actually know for definite - for example by the time you get to the Bronze Age // Iron Age we have no written records so the best the experts come up with as the reason for something unusual is generally "ritual purposes"
On a similar theme, I would suggest looking at Roman roads. They enabled the fast moving of people and materials, that allowed the Romans to be so successful.
Their roads are usually unbelievably straight. They also built an associated network of forts along the roads, each being a days march apart.
The routes are often still followed by modern roads. We probably didnt get back to building something broadly comparable until the 19th Century.
morning Steve, A lot more of the guys who watch this channel knows more than me because many live close to the wall, I live 400 miles away, but I do know that stone walls are popular in the area, so I can imagine some of the stone went walkies, I know also that the ditch did not need to span the 73miles as some places the wall was built at the very top of a hill making it almost impossible to climb over,
The wall at the eastern end terminates at a town called, would you believe, Wallsend. This is on the estuary of the river Tyne. The river is very wide here and forms a natural line of defence hence the wall didn't need to go all the way to the coast.
I have been to the Fort at Wallsend. It was called Segundunum. (I hope I spelt that right). The Fort was discovered some years ago when the houses for the shipbuilders were pulled down. They have restored the Roman bath house which was outside the fortress walls and always the first place enemies attacked. Well worth a visit. Also the area that was pulled down was where the singer Sting was brought up, so he was living on top of a Roman Fort without knowing it!
I did watch a programme on TV recently about a village where quite a lot of the walls and houses were built from stones off Hadrians wall. Like you I think the history of it is . Love your interest. 😊
I have always found actually history to be more interesting than fiction and it is not just in the past. It goes on and on.
Way back in my school days, I couldn't do history to save my life, my brain simply didn't work that way and I hated the subject!
Today I love this sort of thing.
I come from Sunderland about 12 miles south of Newcastle where the wall starts/ends at a place called Wallsend, the wall goes right across the county and into Cumbria. The countryside around is fantastic a great place for camping or there’s lots of small villages along the way with B n Bs, small hotels etc but there were forts along the wall, I’ve been to the 2 best ones several times at Chester’s and Housestead (I go to the Falconry show every year at Chester’s it’s brilliant I love it, they dress up in Roman clothing and give an historical account of how the Romans worshipped birds (the Roman army have an Eagle as their emblem for example, or they associated Owls with gods of the night)
But the actual Scottish border is further north than Hadrians wall it’s about 50 miles north at Berwick Upon Tweed is the last town in England from the North east side of the country.
Your enthusiasm for history is commendable
10:00 15 feet. From a bit of reading I did some years ago the 15 foot stone wall was extended vertically, who knows how
many extra feet, with a wooden fence painted white to make it stand out.
Vindolanda is a MUST place to visit
As others have said, it doesn't run along the modern border. It's closer to the border on the west side (because the border is further south in the west), but on the east side it's roughly 60 miles south of the border. I grew up just north of the wall, but my Grandad was from Wallsend on the east side. Guess how the town got it's name... 😀
One of my favourite exerpts from the Vindolanda tablets is one soldier who was feeling the cold writing home - effectively he said 'it's freezing, please send socks'. (Paraphrasing.)
Thank you for responding to this video about Hadrian's Wall - the chap is quite good, but a bit too succinct. The Wall is such an extensive subject that it is sometimes frustrating how he skims over things. Perhaps you could do a few 'close-ups' of one of the larger forts on the Wall, like Housesteads, or the biggest settlement, like Vindolanda, which is just south of the Wall. Housesteads is laid out in typical fashion with barracks, granaries, hospital, big house for the main officer and, most entertaining, a toilet block, which consists of two rows of communal toilets facing each other and divided by a water-filled trench into which the soldiers dipped a (shared!) sponge on a stick with which to wipe their backsides, LOL. The views from this fort are stunning.
Vindolanda is not only a fort but a place where you can see a little town which the locals built next to it. They were keen to trade and you can see their shops, you can walk along the paved streets where they walked centuries ago and see the drains and the pipes where the water supplies ran. The wives/partners of the soldiers often lived there since, I believe, that only the commander's wife was allowed to live within the fort. It's a extensive site with some rebuilding to show visitors what it would have looked like, a really good cafe and a superb museum, small but perfectly formed, containing amazing stuff recovered from the site and perfectly preserved in the anaerobic soil - things that usually rot - a pair of boxing gloves, a toilet seat, a child's doll, a woman's wig and 5000 pairs of leather shoes. Amazing!
Of course, the Letters from the Wall are the most valued items recovered here and they make those young Roman soldiers somehow come to life. Apart from the birthday invitation sent by the commander's wife to another woman at a neighbouring fort, and letters to mothers asking for warm clothing, I really like the one where the young soldier writes to his parents asking for some money because his rank has been upgraded and he needs to buy himself 'a new set of wheels' - a chariot - as befits his station.
Btw, a bit further along the Wall is the Museum of the Roman Army, beautifully presented with, for instance, a small school, where you are one of the class and Latin is being taught, and a hologram of a recruiting sergeant who tries to recruit you for the Roman army. Modern British army soldiers often visit and a guide told me that they roll their eyes and say that, in 2000 years, nothing has changed.
I used to live at heddon on the wall. As a kid the wall was part of our play ground
I would recommend the Magna Carta as very important ancient document.
That's a great suggestion! Thanks
walked the wall this summer from the black cart to milecaster 37 inspiring
You should look up dover castle! Its got so much history and was in use even recently!
It’s open to the public every day. Portchester castle just outside Portsmouth is the biggest Roman structure north of the alps.
When it comes to defence, it is not about the height of the wall. It is about the depth of the Ditch on the external side, and the angle of the slopes. An attacking horde will come up to a wall and fall down a very steep slope into a deep ditch. once there they are stuck, can't climb back out and can't climb up. The defenders can then take their time killing the attackers with slingshot (stones) or Arrows, spears, whatever. As long as the ditch is deep enough and in good repair, the wall itself "could" only be around 4 feet tall and you would still have an advantage
Hey Steve! You were asking about how many people were involved in the construction process and who they were. The presenter in this video mentioned that three legions participated, which totals around 15,000 men - soldiers, specifically. The Roman Empire did use slaves from all across their empire, but from my knowledge they were primarily used in agricultural production and civic projects within cities. So the short answer is - around 15,000 soldiers were the "who" and the "how many"! Thanks for your reactions and your curiosity Steve!
Slaves accompanied each legion.
@@grahamtravers4522 Interesting; given the whole "Marius Mules" thing and dependence on individual soldiers supporting their own logistical footprint to enable legions to move quickly and without massive supply line weight, I would have assumed that would be prohibitively impractical.
What was not mentioned in the video but which can clearly be seen in photographs and film is how the Romans made use of the topography of the area of the central part of the wall. They built the wall along the lines of dolerite crags which faced north and thus enhanced both the height of the wall but also the impression of impregnability..
Hadrian's Wall was apparently the inspiration for "THE WALL" in Game of Thrones.
The Romans thought the Picts were wild uncontrollable barbarians, and couldn't 'conquer' them, so decided to just wall them out of their empire. The wall was initially quite high and guarded 24/7 along it's entire length.
I'm a Geordie and there are remains of mile castles and sections of the wall throughout my neighborhood (Denton Burn).
It was an amazing feat of engineering in its time (and even now). It marked the very edge of the Roman Empire. The Picts literally stopped the Roman's conquering any further into northern Europe.
For the nearly 300 years that the wall remained a Roman border, rumours and legends built up about the wild people and rugged inhospitable country beyond the wall, hence the Game of Thrones inspiration.
It's all fascinating stuff and I'm proud to live in amongst it all.
Currently devastated about the deliberate felling of Sycamore Gap. 😞 I actually shed a tear when I read the news. As well as marriage proposals, many people have their ashes spread there too. It was/is a very special place to us in the North East.
If you're an angry destructive teen and need to vent, smash up a bus shelter, or graffiti a wall! But to murder part of the natural world, something so beautiful, ancient and irreplaceable is a despicable act. I hope those responsible get named and shamed. A 60 year-old man has now also been arrested for questioning as well as the kid. Makes sense. Felling something that big isn't a one man job!
Appreciate your comment and the local perspective! It definitely seems like a special place to call home, with a very rich history.
My heart goes out to you guys about the Sycamore Gap incident! Very sad.
im from scotland there is so much history just in my villege even more from the city close to me
There are some more walls like the Hadrians Wall around the former Roman Empire. The longest might be the "Limes" in southern Germany, but there are some more in northern Africa, and as well in the East, all dating from about the same time.
the walls has been used to build lot of farm buildings / houses and dry walls for the farmers...we live a few hundred yards from it .........but it was i think about 15 ft +- ... there is a museum along the wall with a rebuilt section to illustrate its former glory.. you should look at doing the coast to coast walk along the wall which is very popular.....we even use the service road today as a public road we drive on behind the wall [ english side ] called the military road....
Watching this while on a train on my daily commute along the Antonine wall. I've actually walked accross scotland broadly following it in the footsteps of Scottish Americain hero John Muir on the John Muir way.
If you want an idea of how many Roman forts there were in England, check any place whose name ends in cester, caster or chester. These are all versions of the Latin word castra which means a military encampment. You can also get an idea of the Roman military road network from names including strat, stret, or street, all derive from the Latin via strata, meaning a paved road. So to take a few examples: Winchester, Leicester and Doncaster all had Roman forts, and Stratford, Stretford and of course Chester-le-Street all commemorate the Roman occupation.
One of the most important documents ever written. The year was 1215 and is called the Magna Carta. Magna Carta was issued in June 1215 and was the first document to put into writing the principle that the king and his government was not above the law. It sought to prevent the king from exploiting his power, and placed limits of royal authority by establishing law as a power in itself. If you watch the film (movie) Ironclad, It's about King John and the film chronicles the siege of Rochester Castle by King John in 1215. The film was shot entirely in Wales in 2009 and produced on a budget of $25 million. It's a film with a lot of history about the treachery and tyranny of King John as he tried to null and void his signing of the Magna Carta, a brutal, but good film.
Game Of Thrones is definitely inspired by Britain. The Scottish are Wildlings above the wall. The North (of England) below the wall dislikes the south and their rule etc. :P
No tech....But Brains, Brawn And Skills!!! ❤🏴🇬🇧 (We need that back) xxx
My sister's house in Gilsland was built with bits of Hadrian's Wall..!
Vindolanda is a great visit and if you book in advance you can help the archaeology team still working on it as a volunteer digger.
If you get a minute you should check out Hadrian's Gate too. It's in Turkey so the complete opposite end of Europe, and into Asia, but I find it fascinating that Hadrian ordered a wall and a gate to be built only 8 years (roughly) apart and nearly 2,000 miles from each other. It shows how big the influence of the Roman Empire was.
Hi Steve, to fall in line with your Roman research, look up Porchester Castle, Silchester Roman wall and Amphitheater. Anything with “Chester” is Roman with Winchester being the old capital city. In Chichester there is an old Palace remains. I am a volunteer photographer for English Heritage and one of my sites is Silchester. It is amazing, the accuracy is incredible the east and west gates are bang on compass points. The English Heritage channel has some great videos, If however you want to look at a different era look at the Victorians and an undertaking called Palmerstons follies predominantly on the coast of England to protect Portsmouth Naval base. Again one of my sites I cover is Fort Brockhurst. You really need to visit particularly the south coast. Keep up your excellent content.
If you're interested in old documents, have a look into the Bayeux Tapestry - it documents the events around William, and the Norman invasion - it is fascinating, and is still giving us more information about our history even now.
Theres an archeology show that is pretty famous in the UK called "Time Team". The whole idea of it is to educate on the absolute monolith that is British history.
Now on TH-cam!
The current border is about 70 miles north of Hadrian's Wall on the East coast but on the West coast it is pretty much on the border. The area from the wall to 70 miles north of it on the East coast has changed hands due to border skirmishes in the past. It is now known as Northumbria or Northumberland. The Northumbrian accent is distinct from Scottish but to anyone not from the area it sounds Scottish. The east end of the wall runs into the west end of the city of Newcastle, built on the river Tyne. The city has been there for over 900 years, so it is pretty new compared to the wall. There are bits of the wall visible in the city.
You should Houstead Fort along Hadrian Wall. They had some cool artifacts too. If you want to see more Roman Britain you might find checking out the Roman Bath in abath England of interest too. As well as Fishbourne Palace
Some of the oldest buildings in the UK are found at Skara Brae, a 5000 year old village in Orkney. It is the best preserved Neolithic settlement in Western Europe. I would highly recommend looking at it. It even still has furniture and toilets from the time.
It should also be said, however, that Skara Brae doesn't even have the oldest buildings in Orkney, that would go to the Knap of Howar which is almost 6000 years old and is equally well preserved but less known about.
Another settlement in Orkney is the Ness of Brodgar which is still being excavated but is supposedly also older than Skara Brae.
At one point engineers tried to repair the cementing (I think in the 50's/60's) on Hadrian's wall, the modern cement started crumbling after only a few decades, the Roman cement whilst massively weathered and worn down is still going strong.
That doesn’t surprise me look at our schools that are built using dodgy cement
You're a bright chap. Love your enthusiasm. Love your posts. Keep it up.
I used to go to the Roman Wall a lot when I was little (I was born in Newcastle). I always wanted to take a little statue of Mithras home - I think it was in Housesteads. Seems it's now in the British Museum. Steve, if you're ever in Newcastle on Tyne, I can recommend the Roman Museum at the University of Newcastle. Many artefacts there from the Wall.
You should look into vindolanda itself not just the wall. Its an incredible place. I spent my 21st birthday weekend hiking across hadrians wall, starting at the fabulous fort of Arbeia at South Shields then then up to the wall along, a detour down to Binchester Roman fort at Bishop Auckland in my home county of Durham and then to housteads and finally Vindolanda.
Thanks for the suggestion! Sounds like an awesome birthday trip.
I used to live in Carlisle and on my way to school the bus route went over where Hadrian's wall used to cross. There was a plaque on the wall to explain this fact. Back in the 18th century many farmers removed the stones from the wall, for use in their farm walls and buildings.
Most of Hadrian’s Wall has been incorporated into local buildings as it was a handy source of dressed stone.
We had our monthly pub quiz (trivia night) at our pub last Thursday and our brilliant quizmaster always starts with a few current affairs questions from the news that week. Naturally there was a Hadrian's wall question due to the Sycamore Gap tree felling, but talking to Quiz Master James later (we never take the quiz too seriously, it's just a fun event), he enlightened me with another fact! He taught me also about the Antonine Wall - I was this old when I learned that fact!
Hadrian's wall is currently completely in England but at the time of the building of Hadrian's wall Both England and Scotland were not yet founded England was around 925 - 930 and Scotland about 100 years before that. The current border between Scotland and England has changed many times since its creation. I am not sure if you have watched [Map Men(Jay Foreman)] on [The world's oldest border?] but would be a worth while re-watching it if you have.
Should check out Holy Island/Lindisfarne history and St. Bede.
The Romans build these walls or similar "frontier security" all over Europe. In Germany + the Netherlands there is the Lower Germanic Limes along the Rhine (~ from the former capital Bonn to the Rhine's estuary), which is not a fortified border per se, but a line of forts along the river connected by roads. The Upper Germanic Limes (~550km from the Rhine to the Danube) was more like Hadrian's wall, partly it used rivers as natural borders. And all are UNESCO world heritage sites :)
Wall is around 4ft tall but was around 15ft, what you see now is the stone base, The Wall itself was 15ft of stone and had castles every 1 mile and forts every 7 miles.
I literally live 5 mins from it and Vindolanda, at Vindolanda they have an example of how the wall looked.
Extremely well preserved because it had become covered with earth over the centuries. Some finds in the 20th century were made by substantial excavations.
I have an opinion on this which the archaeologists do not necessarily agree. This road could have originally been a trade route and a pilgrimage route. This would make it important to control.