Romans and After in North Cumbria - Hadrian's Wall Community Champions' Exploration Events

In Gilsland (almost at Poltross Burn)

Yesterday, as part of Hadrian's Wall Community Champions' Exploration Events, we were able to hear about Lauren and Liam's organic farming activities at Willowford Farm (& B&B) and at The Samson Inn. They are a young couple who are passionate about local produce and are dedicated to the area. After Liam's talk we visited Milecastle 48 (at Poltross Burn also known locally as The King's Stables since medieval times). We walked the Roman mile (49) to Birdoswald Roman Fort taking in turrets, the Stone Wall, the bridge abutment, the modern bridge and Milecastle 49 at Harrow's Scar. We were also able to spot inscriptions and phallic symbols in and around Hadrian's Wall along the route.

Milecastle 48/Poltross Burn/King's Stables

Turret 49A (Willowford)

Willowford Bridge Abutment

We, 16 of us, enjoyed a delicious lunch at Slack House Farm where Dianne and Eric Horn farm in an organic, sustainable way. Lunch was served in the Scypen (next door to where they also have a bunkhouse) and where they make their fantastic Birdoswald cheese. They were very welcoming to us and they talked about their farming activities too.

Walking down to the bridge abutment

After lunch we visited the Roman Fort at Birdoswald (also known as Banna) where we discussed the turf wall, the beauty of the landscape, all things Roman, warlords, Arthurian legends (linking King Arthur to Hadrian's Wall) and St. Patrick's possible birth place. The English Heritage team were very helpful. There is talk of an upgrade to the whole site for 2017 which sounds as if it will be fabulous if it does go ahead. Fingers crossed.

At Harrow Scar Milecastle (49)

We went by bus to Upper Denton to the churchyard and the Norman church with Saxon elements. It is just below Birdoswald where we looked up again at the site of the fort. We discussed the effect of the Reivers on Sir Walter Scott. He visited the area several times and one of his novels in particular, Guy Mannering, is based on certain real people and places in Gilsland.  (Will Higgs' website has lots of research on the Guy Mannering characters.) During the day we reflected on all the different historical elements within Gilsland: steam locomotives, railways; the E-W train line (and the campaign to reopen Gilsland station); the history of Gilsland Hotel and Spa, the Scottish/English border wars; the Romans; the Reivers; Romance; Writers and Poets; Religion and so on. We also inspected a fortified vicarage/bastle house and an earthwork which may possibly be Roman given its proximity to the early Stanegate supply 'frontier' road that runs through Upper or Over Denton.

Upper Denton Churchyard & Norman/Saxon Church with Roman arch

All in all, it was a marvellously sunny autumnal day and a good time was had by all.

(Many more things/people/events/history were discussed during the day and I hope to expand this blog post with a further series of posts - expanding on what I have mentioned above.)

vale!

Hadriana

Communication in the Roman World: What did the Romans ever do for us? Talk

I gave a talk for Hadrian's Wall Community Champions all about communication (and how efficient it was) along Hadrian's Wall/Roman Empire in Hexham last Thursday. It was great fun! It was an incredibly hot day but we (over 20 of us) survived the heat as we all had lots of water (and signals and water clocks) to hand...

The talk was all about what the Romans used for communication. We looked at the Roman road system and the cursus publicus (the Imperial postal system). We looked at signalling methods: an ancient historian, Polybius, described this method to us. In the second photo above you can see that we are trying out that signalling system (which used five flags or torches).

We signalled a word to the audience using the orange flags on sticks. That word turned out to be 'LATRINA' or toilet/loo! Aptly signalling the short break or intermission in my talk.

If you want to see more on this...check out this short clip: from 'What the Romans did for us' with Adam Hart-Davis...(Edge of Empire Part II)

This short clip also looks at the Vindolanda tablets including the famous birthday party invitation from Claudia Severa to Sulpicia Lepidina. This is the first example of a woman's handwriting in the Roman world.

Replica of a wooden tablet and ink dip pen

I talked about wooden tablets (Vindolanda and the recent cache of those at London), wax tablets, inscriptions, verbal messages, visual messages sent via people, flags, torches, smoke, water clocks (covered by Adam Hart-Davis in his series), signal towers and so forth.

An excellent book which looks at Roman signalling is that of D. Woolliscroft: Roman Military Signalling (published by the History Press).

We also looked at levels of literacy in the Roman World and how all these fascinating ways of communication came to be passed to us down into our languages of today.

I pointed out that one of my favourite words from one of the Vindolanda tablets (Masclus asking for more beer) is the Celtic word 'cervesa'
which very definitely comes down to us into the Spanish language and goes out to the world: cerveza (with its different pronunciations).

Naturally the conclusion of my talk was that via their very effective communication methods we bought in to the Roman 'brand'. We are influenced by the Romans in countless ways...e.g.: over 50% of our English language has Latin roots (via 2 different routes); over 90% of Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese (the Romance languages) have Latin roots; culture; art; theatre; medicine; law; astronomy; music; horticulture; religion; language et cetera; all of which the Romans left to us as a legacy.

So to address a very familiar question:'What have the Romans ever done for us?'....just about everything...without us even really being aware of it....!! How's that for efficient communication!