Christmas Greetings from the Wall

Yesterday I spent a very pleasant day at The Great North Museum in Newcastle with two fellow Hadrian's Wall volunteers. One of them will also be guiding at The Great North Museum soon so she gave us a mini guided tour. (By the way, the volunteer-led tours at Vindolanda and The Roman Army Museum were runners up in the Tynedale Awards 2009 Tourism category. Hurrah! You can find more details of that in the "Latest Roman News" on the sidebar.)


The Great North Museum (formerly The Hancock Museum) was opened this summer to massive crowds. The Roman artefacts used to be housed in The Museum of Antiquities. (I am quite sad that I never got to see that museum...much as the GNM is instructive..I have the impression that there were many more Roman artefacts on display at TMofA.)

Above is a section of Hadrian's Wall as it once would have been. The animated picture (there - not here!) shows the rain falling on it and the initials of the soldiers (legionaries and sailors) who built the Wall.

There are various altars there which were taken from sites along the Wall. (This all happened years and years ago when various antiquaries were exploring it. They either found or unearthed Roman objects (including altars). They were then collected and usually put into private collections - eventually they all found their way to museums such as this one.)

We found a piece of technology which listed all the different Roman inscriptions and gave the English translations. The Latin inscriptions are also read out by a speaker at the touch of a button. I gave an impromptu Latin lesson.

Each dedication on an altar ends with
(more often than not)

V.S.L.M. which is an abbreviation for:

votum solvit libens merito "Willingly and deservedly in fulfillment of a vow" (Another place to see some magnificent altars is over at The Senhouse Museum in Maryport.)

To the left is a cross section of a turret on the Wall. It reminds me of a nativity scene to some extent!

We were surprised to see the signs of the zodiac (as below) around Mithras (the Eastern God to whom all the soldiers prayed and worshipped) appearing out of a cosmic egg. This link here explains why these zodiac signs are linked to Mithras.

Here is the building stone and inscription (from Milecastle 38) which proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was the Emperor Hadrian who gave orders to build the Wall. (Until it was found..it had been disputed as to which Emperor had built it.)

IMP[eratori] CAES[ari] TRAIAN[i]HADRIANI AVG[vsti]LEG[io] SECVNDA AVG[vsta] (fecit)A[vli] PLATORIO NEPOTE LEG[atvs] PR[o] PR[aetore]

To the emperor Caesar Trajan Hadrian Augustus,the Second Legion Augusta (built this)for Aulus Platorius Nepos, his pro-praetorian Legate

In my last post I talked about Knarsdale and St. Jude's Church.

Here are the photos of the surrounding countryside plus the cosy and welcoming Kirkstyle Inn.

The end of the Christmas Fayre at St.Jude's Church. You can see Santa lurking. You can also just catch a glimpse of some very delicious sandwiches, cakes, mince pies and more besides! The Christingle Service followed...

Graveyards (this one is at St.Jude's) and churchyards, such as these, always remind me of that gripping, grim, seminal scene between Pip and Magwitch in "Great Expectations".

"The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside down, and emptied my pockets. There was nothing in them but a piece of bread. When the church came to itself - for he was so sudden and strong that he made it go head over heels before me, and I saw the steeple under my feet - when the church came to itself, I say, I was seated on a high tombstone, trembling, while he ate the bread ravenously."

I also remember that grisly encounter as being misty (probably from David Lean's 1946 film of the same book) and so there have been a great deal of chilly, foggy nights up here of late. Thus this Christmas has a potent Dickensian feel to it...

And to finish...

I would like to wish everyone an extremely festive Christmas and a peaceful New Year 2010! (You can see that Santa is already hard at work practising the handing out of all those pressies...) May 2010 bring you many joyful things .....!

"He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk. And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!"

"He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight, "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

The mystery of bleeding heart yard...

I'm grabbing the moment to blog. I've not been blogging so much of late because my husband and I use the same computer. We are trying to get various computers/laptops networked, linked and goodness knows what, so hopefully all will be back to normal in the near future.

This time I am digressing from Roman history to London history (another passion of mine). I've fallen in love with the BBC's current serialisation of Little Dorrit. It happened with Bleak House (my favourite Dickens' book) and now I know that I will soon immerse myself in the 900 pages or so of Little Dorrit.

In May we were down at a fabulous wedding reception at Trafalgar Tavern next door to the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich and we chanced upon some filming of Little Dorrit. As my luck would have it (sic) we did not have our camera with us. Nevertheless we were allowed to wander through the market scene shot inside the Old Royal Naval College (ORNC) in Queen Anne's Court. As usual the BBC props department had gone to enormous lengths to find the right market impedimenta. We also saw some filming down at the water's edge. To see some exquisite photos of the ORNC click here. It was one of the few weekends this year in which we saw some amazingly good weather. You can see quite a lot of these ORNC backdrops in the last screened episode (No.4) and you can also view some of the previously shown episodes on the BBC website. (Not sure if overseas viewers can access these easily although I don't see why not!) Unfortunately I did not see the most wonderful Matthew Macfadyn before you ask!

Speaking of Dickens and his buildings in episode four the "character" of The Bleeding Heart Yard, in Hatton Garden, also looms large and I am reminded of when I used to work in and around this area of London for a big bank which has now gone cap in hand (like Oliver Twist) to the government to ask for more. It is a very quirky and byzantine area (Holborn and Clerkenwell) with very narrow alleys and odd doorways. These are disrupted every so often by smudges of green (Lincoln's Inn Fields, Gray's Inn Gardens and Red Lion Square), and I am sure much more treasure* lies hidden from view like the fabled Fleet River. One day I hope to resume my wanderings and ramblings there. (*My good lady diver friend used to live opposite Dickens' old bank, the Finsbury Savings Bank, in Sekforde Street which is now a private residence. There is a plaque on the wall to commemorate this fact.)

I haven't quite managed to disentangle how The Bleeding Heart Yard came to be so named. There is the usual one recounted at The Bleeding Heart Restaurant (in which I have been fortunate enough to dine) about the murder of Lady Elizabeth Hatton. ("Her Annual Winter Ball, on January 26, 1662, was one of the highlights of the London social season. Halfway through the evening's festivities, the doors to Lady Hatton's grand ballroom were flung open. In strode a swarthy gentleman, slightly hunched of shoulder, with a clawed right hand. He took her by the hand, danced her once around the room and out through the double doors into the garden. A buzz of gossip arose. Would Lady Elizabeth and the European Ambassador (for it was he) kiss and make up, or would she return alone? Neither was to be. The next morning her body was found in the cobblestone courtyard – torn limb from limb, with her heart still pumping blood onto the cobblestones. And from thenceforth the yard was to be known as The Bleeding Heart Yard.")

There is another version to be found in Wikipedia which claims that the gory name for the yard comes from the sign of a nearby tavern dating back to The Reformation. Nevertheless an unresolved mystery, quite frankly, is even more beguiling...