Snow, stones, forts, castles: Walltown, Thirlwall, Bewcastle

Up at Walltown with Jeff, the volunteer ranger, from Northumberland National ParkWe talked about many things on this November Hadrian's Wall Community Champions Project Walk last Wednesday: geology; a missing turret (45B); the Wall (but of course); King Arthur legends; a Roman limestone quarry hereabouts; whinstone quarries (19C.&20C.); Saving the Wall, chives; pele tower at Walltown Farm; stones from Milecastle 45 acting as water troughs at the Farm; the dating of the tower & Bishop Ridley's brother, John Ridley, who inherited the tower. Up on Hadrian's Wall at Walltown in a 'Nick' (a gap) you will see a fence around an old well This is known as King Arthur's Well. Legend has it that King Edwin of Northumbria was baptised by Paulinus at this well or spring at Walltown, some four miles from Haltwhistle. The spring still supplies water to many of the farms and it was probably a Roman shrine. Jeff  confirmed that NNPA archaeologists confirmed that the stones used in this well were Roman.
For more information on Walltown please click on this link: (Walltown Education Pack - Northumberland National Park)

vale to Maria! Hail & Farewell! (ave atque vale!) Maria has done lots of sterling work over the years with Hadrian's Wall Heritage, Hadrian's Wall Trust & Hadrian's Wall Community Champions Project. Maria is off to pastures new...we shall miss her!

Snowy views up at Walltown overlooking the quarry (now a Northumberland National Park nature reserve)

Jeff being very knowledgeable (NNPA)

P & Friends measuring a stone which came from Hadrian's Wall originally at Thirlwall Castle
At Thirlwall castle (under the guardianship of Northumberland National Park) we looked at the origins of the name (it means 'break in the Wall'); the history of the medieval castle with links to Richard III and Edward I who stayed there for 4 nights 710 years ago (during September 1306)

Views of Thirlwall Castle 

We also talked about the legend of the golden table. A widow's son will break the spell and release the keeper of the golden table plus the table itself! For further information click here: Thirlwall Castle History (Romanticism, Reivers, Parliamentarians, Earl of Carlisle and more.)

For conservation of Thirlwall Castle please click here: Robin Kent/Soft Capping

It is also rumoured that there is a tunnel between Thirlwall Castle and Blenkinsopp Castle which is nearby...the name of Thirlwall lives on in Nine Nicks of Thirlwall (now Seven due to the extensive whinstone quarrying) and Thirlwall Parish Council and the surname Thirlwall. (My old French teacher and a Little Mix band member spring to mind. I do not think they were related....!!)

After Thirlwall Castle we had our picnic lunch at Greenhead Village Hall and we then drove along various roads (touching parts of the Stanegate and the Maiden Way) to get to Bewcastle. We passed Triermain Castle and Askerton Castle along the way. Bewcastle is 6 miles north of Birdoswald (Banna) Fort. It has a population of 300 people.

Reverend Rob Brown  (above) expertly explaining the different meanings of the Anglo-Saxon Cross at Bewcastle

St. John the Evangelist with an eagle

West face: John the Baptist holding a lamb and below him the figure of Christ

The east face: the vine

Neolithic Origins/Roman/Christian/Norman/Reiver Bewcastle
Bewcastle (also known as Fanum Cocidii, the Temple of Cocidius) has been the centre of religious life since before the time of the Romans. Traces of burial mounds, cairns and the remains of hut circles date settlement to the Neolithic period (4000-2000BC). There is also evidence of habitation in the Bronze Age and Iron Age. The natives worshipped Cocidius who has been associated with the Roman god, Mars. A local Cumbrian historian, Diane McIlmoyle, who goes by the name of Esmeralda, has produced a great series of posts on Bewcastle/Cocidius/Cumbrian locals at Bewcastle.
Here is her post: Cocidius-Cumbrian God


Silver votive plaques showing Cocidius, found in the strong room of the Roman fort, can be seen at Tullie House Museum in Carlisle.
Please note there was also a Bewcastle Cauldron (which pre-dates the Romans)...also written about by Esmeralda. The real thing can be seen at Tullie House.
The Romans were good at hedging their bets and adopted local gods...here they have matched Cocidius with Mars (God of War and Hunting) but Cocidius is also associated with the God of Forests, Woods and Trees, Silvanus (we know him as "The Green Man"). They built their turf and timber fort in an unusual hexagonal shape (rather than that of a rectangular shape) over the site of the original shrine to Cocidius. Its headquaters and gates were made of stone. Fanum Cocidii is a Hadrianic Fort (and an outpost fort alongside those of Netherby, Castra Exploratorum, and Birrens, Blatobulgium) to Hadrian's Wall via Gillaleas Beacon Roman Signal Station. It was built in AD122-124. The original garrison came from Dacia (modern Romania). They were later replaced by 1000 Nervians from Germany and 250 cavalry.  It is an unusual hexagonal shape, as previously mentioned, and one of the biggest forts at 6 acres.
To get a sense of the scale and see the size/shape of the fort - have a look at it using Google Earth. (Some of my links also show these.)

After the Romans
After the Romans left (or not - as the case may be - please see a timeline here)...Bewcastle continued in a religious sense by possibly having a small monastic cell present within the Roman fort walls and hence the very fine late 7th century (c. 675AD) Anglo-Saxon Cross was built. It is made of sandstone and stands at 14 feet high. Like Roman statues and inscriptions it too would have been vividly painted. It is missing its cross head. (Its sister cross retains its cross head and to a certain extent is better preserved. It was broken up and buried so was not so weather beaten. Nevertheless the Bewcastle cross is absolutely splendid. The resident vicar at Bewcastle, Reverend Rob Brown, did a fantastic job of deciphering what the drawings and the inscriptions all meant. There are different interpretations as the Anglo-Saxons liked their puzzles apparently...

The south face and the famous sundial

St. Cuthbert's church is behind the cross
 (and the sister cross is at Ruthwell in Scotland)

The small but beautifully formed museum at Bewcastle

The converted barn museum (within the church cemetery) is definitely worth a visit as it explains the Anglo-Saxon Cross and the site of Bewcastle (in all its manifestations in great detail).

Bewcastle Church is named after St. Cuthbert who must have visited Bewcastle (to see the Cross)
It was rebuilt in 18C.

Norman Fort/Castle
The castle/Norman fort was built soon after in 1092 in the NE angle of the fort. The present castle was built between 1340-60 by John de Strivelyn (lord of Bewcastle and one of Edward III's generals. It later passed to the de Middleton family who allowed it to decay and then passed it to the Crown. Richard III, Duke of Gloucester (later Richard III) in his capacity as Warden of the English West March (c.1470-83) is thought to have repaired the castle and to have added the gatehouse on the west side. From the late 15th century until 1608 the castle and the manor were held for the Crown by the Musgraves who acted as Constables. It was abandoned and demolished around 1640. Both Bewcastle Norman Castle and Thirlwall Castle have excellent information panels showing how the interior of both buildings were used and inhabited.

The Norman Fort within the confines of the Roman Fort
also has connections with Richard III

Bucolic Norman Fort/Castle scene complete with hens, sheep and llamas from the neigbouring farm (Demesne Farm)

Many visitors come from abroad to research their surnames and Reiver family heritage.  Two Armstrong brothers (in the 1800s) became noted steam locomotive engineers. Their careers were mainly spent on the Great Western Railway.

A touching reminder in St.Cuthbert's cemetery (this being Remembrance Sunday) of the different communities who lived and died at Bewcastle and elsewhere in different wars down the ages.

Further information about Bewcastle and the Anglo-Saxon Cross can be gained from leaflets inside St. Cuthbert's Church and Reverend Rob Brown.

The incredibly informative Bewcastle website www.bewcastle.com  is in the process of being updated.

Further reading:
Saving the Wall, The Conservation of Hadrian's Wall, 1746-1987
by Stephen Leach & Alan Whitworth

Ancient Frontiers: Exploring the geology and landscape of Hadrian's Wall area - British Geological Survey

Handbook to the Roman Wall (J.Collingwood Bruce) 14th edition David J. Breeze

Hadriana filmed near Walltown Crags

This is me up near Walltown crags. It's something I've been meaning to do for ages - show you this hidden treasure. Not many people know about it. It's off the beaten track and I only noticed it, myself, last summer when I was driving along a tiny road near Hadrian's Wall.

I'd like to do more short films about different features in/around the area. They won't always be about Roman things. Although my obsession is primarily the Romans I am still captivated by the sheer diversity of the North East and West regions. There is so much here. It is all inter-related.

One of the things which I point out in the short video (which is about 2 minutes long) is a feature of Roman stonework called diamond (or feather or herringbone) broaching. These carvings on the stonework, created by the Roman legionary masons, provide a rough surface for plaster in many cases. One of the lesser known things about Hadrian's Wall was that it was whitewashed from tip to toe - each side along its entire 80 Roman miles.......it must have stood out like a beacon, especially up along the crags, in its heyday.

There is a little more on this broaching here (re: Corbridge Roman Bridge Stonework) which comes from this website: TWM Archaeology. This whole website is a mine of information covering different time periods in the North East. Absolutely fascinating!

Sometimes I get a bit depressed that no-one is reading my blog (I've just re-read that and thought that's not fair on your loyal band of followers and readers but you know what I mean...) but I have been fiddling around looking at a few things on Facebook and have seen that people have linked to some of my posts. I know that this short video is nowhere near perfect (I hold the camera too close, at times, to my face for example) but I am determined to just bash away at things and get something blogged up. The amount of stuff which I have lost from the last couple of years (photowise is a bit galling) but it also provides me with the excuse to go round all the sites and photo them again. If I can get permission to film at certain places then that might be an easier and quicker way to show you what I find amazing rather than leaving it all to write up one day! My new motto is: "Good Enough!" "Bona Res Satis!" or "Bene Satis!"

Sorry too for not visiting all your blogs. I've not allowed myself to do this for ages because once I start to do it I find that hours have whizzed by. As usual, with me, it's all or nothing. My new resolution is to try and visit about 3 blogs per day (perhaps more) and leave a comment. I managed it Thursday and Friday but not yesterday or today. Must try harder!

P.S.: Hope to soon get back to reminiscing about my banking days...I know I keep promising to do it but I always keep my promises! ;)

Hello to Northumbria/Cumbria! (Part 3)

1. Here is a photo of our garden taken last Summer.




2. A view from the side of our house looking towards Walltown and the crags/Hadrian's Wall.

3. A view taken from Longbyre "high street". Essentially the hamlet has one street running down its centre looking towards Thirlwall Castle and the Vallum (Roman - Hadrianic ditch). (It still reminds me of a Spanish village some how!)

4. A photo taken from the road running behind our house (B6318). The house peeks out from an unruly hedge. Behind us you can see the crags on the Whin Sill, the Castle and the Vallum.

5. A view beside a drystone wall beside Farmer Scott's land looking at the house etcetera.

I took these photos a few days ago as they give a good idea of where we are in relation to Hadrian's Wall. We are well and truly in the central section of Hadrian's Wall. (For us - the best bit!) The Wall, itself, no longer remains in the section sweeping down to us. It exists in a ghostlike fashion. There is a tiny bit left on the old railway embankment near us which I showed to you in the snowy photos. The Wall re-emerges nearer Gilsland, the next village along from us. Gilsland straddles the Northumberland/Cumbria border...which also has the Poltross Burn Milecastle no.48 (a "must see" as it still has some steps which have allowed archaeologists to calculate how high Hadrian's Wall would have been: about 6.5 metres - 21 feet - with the parapet included.)

So how did we end up in this neck of the woods? I recounted our story here and here as to how and why we came back to Northumberland. (I admit that I wrote this a wee while ago and you may care to refresh your memory by reading them again.)

So in times of ever expanding prices...we now had to find a home and a business for our hard earned pennies at the height of the property boom (2003-2007).

We started looking around from 2004 onwards. We looked abroad for a dive centre but we kept on being drawn back to this region again and again.

Why?

We had fallen in love with the people, the community, the jaw-dropppingly-magnificent scenery and the history. I kept seeing the Roman stones and I kept thinking what do they mean? How did they get here? Why are they still here? What on earth were the Romans thinking when they built all these things? Were they mad?

The questions continued to bubble up but other issues took priority. For instance, despite the drip, drip of the Roman quandries, daily life went on: children to feed, tidy up, dress, entertain and the mere fact of a business to be obtained...we needed some money to earn and to live off!

Initially we wanted to find a self catering type property or properties but unlike Devon or Cornwall where farming tended to happen on a small, family scale...here farming was managed and achieved through vast farming estates (owned, on the whole, by titled families). Farms were run using labourers who lived in cottages. Those cottages are often to be found, boxed in, on a huge swathe of land, with a tiny pocket of a garden attached, clinging to the sides of main roads. Perhaps they were not interested in gardening when they spent their entire lives working the land. Perhaps they had no spare time available to lavish on a garden?

The history of the Reivers had also had its effect too...the bigger houses tended to be built in safer areas. The "old" money gravitated to those regions too. This whole area is dominated by the Whin Sill (a huge outcrop of dominating rock...from where you tend to get the most super photos of the Wall). It's no secret that the stretches of Hadrian's Wall, which have survived, were in pure Reiver territory. People were too scared to try and live in these lands. Towns, industry and normal lives were pursued in Newcastle, Carlisle and beyond.

Haltwhistle has an industrial history...largely of mining, quarrying plus service industries and the like. A couple of hundred years ago rows of terraced housing began to spring up there alongside country cottages. One of the grandest houses in Haltwhistle overlooks the town and it belonged to the mine manager in days gone by...

Gilsland used to be a Victorian spa town. Hence you will find a lot of the larger Victorian town houses there. Quite an oddity compared to other towns and villages surrounding it. Fascinating nevertheless.

So you may have gathered by now...that suitable propeties..available for self catering were rarer than hens' teeth.

We had heard on the grapevine that the Bed and Breakfast trade was really picking up since the Hadrian's Wall trail had opened in 2003. After looking at many, many properties from Carrshield, Mohope, Slaggyford, Nenthead, Gilsland, Haydon Bridge, Hexham, Carlisle and up towards Bamburgh Castle, the Borders and elsewhere...we then switched our attention and energies to seeking out a suitable B&B property to purchase....a bit closer to "home"...

To be contined....

Walltown Quarry: Walking the Dog and more...

We often go to Walltown, which is just up the road, to walk our dog.

At Walltown, in days of yore, the quarrying blasted away a fair bit of Hadrian's Wall. (That was back in the days when they could do that!)

The rock (the whinstone and so on) was used for the building of many roads including the M6 and A69. When they were finished they made it into a nature park and it became part of the Northumberland National Park. It is a very attractive spot now with nature walks, a lake and ducks. There is also a cafe there which sells souvenirs of the Wall and area. It is also a very welcome spot for walkers, cyclists, day, weekend trippers, families and dog walkers of the Wall to get a cuppa and a biccie.

I went to a day long conference on Friday held by Hadrian's Wall Heritage Ltd. which organised my training at Vindolanda and The Roman Army Museum. You may have heard that there is a plan to light up the whole wall (as perhaps the Roman Army would have done) - all 84 miles of it. Its website can be found here. The whole event will be held on March 13th - Saturday - this year. Mercifully NOT on the Ides of March (the 15th)! Weather permitting..the sight should be stunning. They are planning to fly a plane along the entire length of it to capture it on film. There are also two big events to be held in Carlisle and at Wallsend (Segedunum).

I have volunteered to help up at Walltown Crags so you never know...I could be up there on the night!

Send a Smile from Hadrian's Wall

Children at nearby Greenhead and Herdley Bank Schools were invited by The Blue Peter Team to become involved with their Send a Smile! Appeal, which is devoted to helping children born with cleft lips and palates. (Click on the highlighted words as it takes you to the Blue Peter appeal website and a video.) Operation Smile sends teams of volunteer medical professionals to provide free reconstructive surgery.

The children designed their own T-shirts and transformed them into medical gowns. They then appeared on Blue Peter last 5th November 2009. They got dressed up in their T-shirts and draped their "Send a Smile" banners up at Walltown Crags across Hadrian's Wall.

They enjoyed taking part and helped to raise some money/equipment for a great cause. They got a lot of fun out of the whole day. They especially got a buzz out of watching the programme to see who appeared and/or got a mention. They really liked the idea that they were helping children across the world and could see the physical things that they had made actually making a difference. A local journalist, David Coulter, has written it up here.




They were very chuffed that they got a Blue Peter Badge for their efforts as well.

Mr. Hadriana couldn't wait to try one on as he had been desperate to get a Blue Peter Badge as a child. They do say that..."all good things come to he who waits".. Don't they? ;)

Have you earned any precious Blue Peter Badges and if so...what for?