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Gentleman's Magazine 1851 part 2 p.387
list, and the eighth cohort of the Britons. Hunnum is the
next station, under the modern name of Halton-Chesters. It
has suffered perhaps more than any. The walls have been
entirely destroyed, and, a few years since, a systematic
search was made for the stones of which the temples and
villas which covered the area now occupied by a lonely hut,
built, as the farmhouses of the neighbourhood are, with
stones cut by the hands of Roman masons. Pottery strews the
surface of the ground; but the general aspect of the site is
uninviting, so completely have the modern rural Vandals
ransacked the ground. Here the Notitia places the
Ala Savinia or Sabiniana, a body of troops to
whom this appellation had probably been given by Hadrian in
compliment to his empress, Sabina. Camden found here an
inscription to a soldier of this ala, and a slab
recording the operations of the second legion, also dug up
on the same spot, is now preserved at Alnwick Castle. Mr.
Bruce speaks of busts of Emperors and Empresses from Hunnum
in the house and grounds at Matfen, a place we did not see,
and of some interesting discoveries made a few years ago to
the north of the turnpike road, in a section of the station
now known by the significant name of "Brunt-Ha'penny Field."
He also mentions an aqueduct, traced for three-qtrs of a
mile. Our tour has added to these and other records a new
feature of much interest in a very perfect aqueduct, which
carried the water of a rivulet under the great wall which
passed through the station, and which, as before observed,
has been converted into the present high road. It still
serves its original purpose, and is in excellent
preservation.
It is after leaving this station for some distance, that the
traveller for the first time forms a clear notion of all the
parts of the great fortification. The land now opens on each
side, and he perceives before him all the world stretching
out and converging towards the horizon in bold and clear
outline. Straight before him is the road with the two rows
of facing-stones of the wall; on the northern side is the
deep ditch, and the vallum or mound with its wide trench. As
he advances he will descry the mile-castles, and at longer
intervals the great stations. "I climbed over a stone wall,"
says Hutton, "to examine the wonder; measured the whole in
every direction; surveyed them with surprise, with delight;
was fascinated and unable to proceed; forgot I was upon a
wild common, a stranger, and the evening approaching. Even
hunger and fatigue were lost in the grandeur before me. If a
man writes a book upon a turnpike road, he cannot be
expected to move quick; but, lost in astonishment, I was not
able to move at all." Advancing, we find at Plane-tree field
a fragment of the wall nearly forty yards in length, with
five courses of the facing stones, and a little below, at
Brunton, is another fragment seven feet high, with nine
courses of facing stones; against it rests an altar, the
sides of which have been sculptured with foliage and other
ornaments, but the inscription has perished, and no wonder,
for the altar in former times served for a gate post. The
turn-pike road here leaves the wall and crosses the North
Tyne at Chollerford, a little above Chesters (Cilurnum),
which in the time of the Romans was reached by a bridge in
the strait course of the wall. It is here the antiquary
commences the most delightful part of his journey.
Interested more and more as he has gradually seen the great
fortification developing itself in all its parts and
accessories, he has hitherto drawn on his imagination for
the fillings-in of the picture. At Chesters he approaches
the walls of Cilurnum; he enters, and is in the midst of
dwelling-houses, roofless and dilapidated, but still
sufficiently perfect for him to form a good notion of their
arrangement, the distribution and peculiarities of the
apartments, and indeed the general plan of the castrum,
although it is but partially excavated. He crosses
thresholds worn by the tread of Roman feet, and as he walks
through room after room upon the strong flagged pavements,
built as if to last for ever, he revolves in his mind the
revolutions of empires and the courses and vicissitudes of
human affairs. A city lies buried before him. During a brief
period in the world's age the scene around him was full of
life, enterprise, and hope; a dense population has spread
along the hills from the Tyne to the Solway; camps, villas,
and towns marked its growth; some few centuries later nature
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