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Gentleman's Magazine 1851 part 1 p.150
"All the gateways except the north have been explored, and
present very interesting subjects of study to the antiquary.
The western part is in the best condition, and is specially
worthy of attention. Its arrangements will readily be
understood by an inspection of the ground plan, which is
here introduced. ...
This gateway, as well as the others which have been, is, in
every sense of the word, double. Two walls must be passed
before the camp can be entered; each is provided with two
portals, and each portal has been closed with two-leaved
gates. The southern entrance of the outside wall has alone
as yet been entirely cleared of the masonry that closed it.
The jambs and pillars are formed of massive stones of rustic
masonry. The doors, if we may judge from the fragments of
corroded iron which have been lately picked up, were of
wood, strengthened with iron plates and studs; they moved,
as is appaprent from the pivot-holes, upon pivots of iron.
In the centre of each portal stands a strong upright stone,
against which the gates have shut. Some of the large
projecting stones of the exterior wall are worn, as if by
the sharpening of knives upon them. ... The guard-chambers
on each side are in a state of choice preservation, one of
the walls standing fourteen courses high. Were a roof put on
them, the antiquary might here stand guard, as the Tungrians
of old, and for a while forget that the world is sixteen
centuries older than it was when these chambers were reared.
At least two of the chambers in this part of the camp have
been warmed by U-shaped flues running round three of their
sides beneath the floor. These chambers, when recently
excavated, were found to be filled with rubbish so highly
charged with animal matter as painfully to affect the
sensibilities of the labourers. The teeth and bones of oxen,
horns resembling those of the red deer, but larger, and
boars' tusks were very abundant; there was the usual
quantity of all the kinds of pottery used by the Romans."
The Vignette subjoined to this article (in p.154) represents
the western portal of the station Amboglanna, now called
Birdoswald, as seen from the inside.
"It exhibits the pivot-holes of the gates, and the ruts worn
by the chariots or wagons of the Romans. The ruts are nearly
four feet two inches apart, the precise gauge of the
chariot-marks in the east gateway at Housesteads. The more
perfect of the pivot-holes exhibits a sort of spiral
grooving, which seems to have been formed with a view to
rendering the gate self-closing. The aperture in the sill of
the doorway, near the lower jamb, has been made designedly,
as a similar vacuity occurs in the eastern portal; perhaps
the object of it has been to allow of the passage of surface
water from the station. The whole of the area of the camp is
marked with the lines of streets and the ruins of
buildings."
In addition to these stations the wall was provided with
castella, now called Mile Castles, quadrangular in
form, and measuring usually from 60 to 70 feet in each
direction; and subsidiary to these were turrets or
watch-towers of about eight to ten feet square; the latter
of these have in comparatively recent times, been destroyed,
and the castella have not shared a much better fate.
In all these buildings it is remarkable that no tiles, so
common in the Roman structures in the south, have been used;
they are only to be found in the foundations and hypocausts
of the domestic edifices within the stations. By comparison,
many other points of difference will also be noticed. The
fortresses erected by the Romans on the line of the "Littus
Saxonicum" are of more imposing appearance, of wider area,
and possess higher architectural pretensions; but these two
great chains of stone fortresses, the maritime to repel the
Saxons and Franks, the inland to defend against the Picts
and Scots, were both admirably adapted for those purposes.
In the north, the wall itself was the main protection, and
the number of the castra was requisite to sustain
intercourse and rapid communication. In the south, the sea
was to a certain extent a defence,
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