Gents Mag 1851 part 2 p.387
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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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-- Hadrian's Wall | ||
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-- Cilurnum | ||
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-- Onnum | ||
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