UNDERSTANDING HADRIAN’S WALL

Papers from a conference held at South

Shields, 3 rd -5 th November, 2006, to mark

the publication of the 14 th edition of the

Handbook to the Roman Wall

The Arbeia Society 2008

 To STUDy THE moNUmENT: HADRIAN’S WALL 1848-2006
David Breeze

In 1848 John Collingwood Bruce was prevented from

visiting Rome by the revolutionary events on the continent
that year (Fig. 1). Instead he went to Hadrian’s Wall. Thus
began a relationship with the monument which was to last
the rest of his life and make his name world famous.
Bruce’s career has been charted elsewhere1 and it is not
my intention to rehearse it. Rather, I wish to consider a
number of speciic problems which were already alive in
Bruce’s day and chart our interest in them since.
In the irst edition of the Handbook to the Roman Wall,
entitled The Wallet-Book to The Roman Wall, published
in 1863, Bruce offered a statement on the purpose of
Hadrian’s Wall. It was, he wrote, ‘a great fortiication in-
tended to act not only as a fence against a northern enemy,
but to be used as the basis of military operations against a
foe to either side of it’.2 This is the irst modern statement
on the purpose of Hadrian’s Wall. In it, Bruce recognised
a distinction between the Wall as a barrier and the Wall
as a base for the army defending the province. Previously
it had simply been assumed that the purpose of Hadrian’s
Wall was defensive.
In his published works, Bruce continued to see Hadrian’s
Wall as defensive as his text amply demonstrates.3 Indeed
R. G. Collingwood in his edition of the Handbook retained
Bruce’s language and phraseology in spite of the fact that
he had argued twelve years before that Hadrian’s Wall
was not defensive.4 Perhaps this merely demonstrates the
power of the written word. However, the central argument Figure 1. John Collingwood Bruce (1805-1892).
remains. We are still discussing the question, what exactly
was the purpose of Hadrian’s Wall? Obviously such a evidence is conclusive, and in coming to a conclusion each
enormous wall had a considerable defensive capability. of us falls back on our own interpretation of the function
But was the Wall itself actually defended? Part of our of Hadrian’s Wall. My own preference is to envisage the
problem in considering this problem may lie with our Wall without a walkway along the top, but I cannot prove
terminology. Use of the word ‘defensive’ may be mislead- this. It simply its more closely my view of the function
ing: perhaps ‘protective’ would be a better word to use. I of the artiicial barriers on Roman frontiers.
believe that all scholars would agree that Hadrian’s Wall In my belief, I am encouraged by evidence which was
was protective. not available to Bruce. Excavations in the irst third of
Hadrian’s Wall can only be considered ‘defensive’ if it the twentieth century were able to plan the sequence of
was used in a military manner. Bruce had no doubt that building Hadrian’s Wall. It became clear that the irst plan
soldiers fought from the top of the Wall. Even Colling- was for a barrier with a gate at every mile and a tower
wood, though denying that possibility, accepted that there (including the presumed one over the north gate of each
was a wall-walk: the Wall, as he saw it, was an elevated milecastle) at every third of a Roman mile. Forts were
sentry-walk. It was John Mann who went a step further only added to the Wall later. This sequence helps us to
and denied the existence of a wall-walk.5 In the 14th edi- differentiate between the function of frontier control – as
tion of the Handbook I have tried to present the evidence indicated, for example, by the regulations for entry to the
for and against a wall-walk.6 Unfortunately, no piece of empire which Tacitus states operated in relation to the
German tribes – and defence, which was the role of the
1
Bruce 1905, Miket 1984 and Breeze 2003. Cf. Breeze 2007. units in the forts in the frontier zone.
2
Bruce 1863, 16. It is within that framework that I would interpret more
3
In recording the discovery of the north gate of Housesteads recent discoveries, the pits which have been found on the
fort, Bruce (1857, 256) remarked: ‘the very existence of [the berm – the space between the wall and the ditch – on both
north gate] was doubted by every one a few years ago’.
4
Collingwood 1921; 1933.
5
The earliest published reference I can ind to this statement is I had not included in my discussion that the width of the Wall
Mann 1990, 53, citing Donaldson 1988, 131. might suggest the existence of a wall-walk. That point is
6
At the conference at South Shields, Paul Bidwell noted that discussed in Breeze and Dobson 2000, 42.

1
The Arbeia Journal, 9 (2007)

Figure 2. No. 21 in J.C. Bruce’s private catologue of his paintings (1886), described as follows. ‘The north gateway of Housesteads. The
mass of rubbish on the right ,which the honest Walter Rutherford (now no more) is removing, shows the extent to which the whole of this
piece of masonry was covered up’. The painting, by Henry Richardson, must date to 1852 when the gate was excavated; it was published
as an engraving in Bruce 1853, pl. facing p. 187. Laing Art Gallery, Tyne and Wear Museums.

Figure 3. Turret 44b (Mucklebank) at the time of its excavation in the summer of 1891, or shortly afterwards. J.C. Bruce
Collection, Arbeia Roman Fort ( photo probably by John Gibson).

2
TO STUDy THE MONUMENT: HADRIAN’S WAll 1848-2006
Figure 4. John Pattinson Gibson (1838-1912).
Hadrian’s Wall and the Antonine Wall.7 To take an analogy
from the Iron Curtain, these are but another element of
control, created in order to ensure that people wishing to
enter the empire did so through the speciied gates. They
are the equivalent of trip wires. It is worth reminding
ourselves that the purpose of the frontier walls built in
the last 50 years – the Berlin Wall, the Israeli wall – is the
control of the movement of people not armies.
In 1857 Bruce recorded the discovery and clearance
of the north gate of the fort at Housesteads (Fig. 2).8 He
wrote, ‘it is extraordinary to see how constantly, in all
the buildings of the Wall these proofs of the vigorous
onslaught of the Caledonians (probably in the time of
Commodus)’. Such ‘proofs’ continued to be recorded, for
example by J. P. Gibson in his report on his excavations
at Mucklebank turret in 1892 (Figs 3 and 4). He referred
to ‘the two great epochs of disaster indicated in many of
the explored camps’.9 As further excavations took place,
the interpretation of the masonry debris and burning in
the structures along the Wall as evidence for enemy action
became more deeply entrenched. In 1930 Eric Birley stood
back and considered other possibilities. He commented,
‘the common (but not invariable) occurrence of wood-ash
can be suficiently explained as the remains of the last
ires in the buildings concerned, before the new loors
were laid; it is not easy to clear away ashes from a clay
loor without leaving some behind, and some bottoming
for lags or a new clay floor would be desirable’.10
The view that most if not all burning on Hadrian’s Wall,
in particular when associated with masonry debris, was the
7 tion: this was the raison d’être behind the conference on
Bidwell 2005. For the Antonine Wall see Breeze 2006, 77-8.
8
Bruce 1853, 187.
9 11
Gibson 1902, 17.
10
Birley 1930, 171.
result of enemy action is not surprising. If Hadrian’s Wall
was considered to be defensive, then it is not surprising
that those scholars sharing that view might also expect it
to be attacked. And the assumption that the evidence for
damage and destruction was the result of enemy action in
turn led to the view that the enemy action at any one time
encompassed much if not all the Wall. Thus was born the
theory of Wall periods. In the 1960s a new view developed,
that the history of individual forts could be unique and
not dependent upon an overview which saw everything
happening at the same time: this is chronicled in the paper
by Brian Dobson in this volume. Our view now would be
that we should consider each site on its merits and seek
to build a grass roots consensus rather that create a theory
and squeeze the evidence into it.
The great era of investigation on Hadrian’s Wall lasted
from the examination of Mucklebank turret in 1892 to the
mid 1930s when those leading the work stated that they
had solved all the main problems of the frontier. The dif-
iculty for Wall studies was – and is – that this statement
was – and is – believed. It is only as a result of further
work, in the study as much as the ield, that the statement
has been challenged.
Two examples of such challenges are the survey work of
Humphrey Welfare and the discovery of pits on the berm.
In the 1930s it was stated that there were no causeways in
front of milecastles, except in one speciic case, MC 50 TW
(High House) and possibly another, MC 54 (Randylands).
Ever since, Hadrian’s Wall students have sought tortuous
reasons for this situation. Humphrey Welfare brought
us to a solution in an entirely different way, by examin-
ing the remains on the ground.11 He not only recorded a
causeway in front of MC 25 (Codlawhill) which appears
to be original, but examined the area in front of every
milecastle leading to the statement that something unusual
happened in front of over half the milecastles where the
evidence survived and that it was likely that this indicated
that there were originally causeways in front of all mile-
castles. This makes much more sense of the original plan
for Hadrian’s Wall.
The second example is the location of pits on the berm,
a totally unexpected discovery.12 This reminds us how lit-
tle of the monument we have investigated and that there
are likely to be other unexpected inds. There is another
element to the discovery: the evidence for the pits has
all been found in urban environments which we had too
often hitherto written off as being unlikely to contain
many surviving archaeological remains. It is clear that
we need to ensure the protection of such areas and take
every opportunity to excavate as that may lead to other
new discoveries.
Each edition of the Handbook is the statement for its
generation. It is now 30 years since Charles Daniels wrote
his Handbook, exactly a generation to a genealogist. To
help the next Handbook to be better, we should examine
and challenge the premises contained within the 14th edi-
Welfare 2000. Cf Welfare 2004
12
Bidwell 2005
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The Arbeia Journal, 9 (2007)

3-5 November 2006, the proceedings of which are pub-

lished in this journal.

Bibliography

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