Andrew
Hoyland writes......Over May half term, eight Year 9 Latin students went on the
long awaited trip to Hadrian’s Wall. This is a wall built about AD 122 by
Emperor Hadrian to keep out the barbarians!
We left school very early on Monday 26th and arrived at the wall around midday. Our visit started at a Roman event at Birdoswald, where volunteers of the “Imperial Roman Army” re-enacted military manoeuvres as our group wandered around watching legionary and cavalry soldiers aiming at their targets (though their accuracy was rather suspect at times!). We very much enjoyed the weaponry, board games and cooking displays. Walking around, we noticed that the Roman food that soldiers were eating consisted of cabbage and gravy with an odd piece of bread. Although we were “tempted” to join in the menu, we decided after great debate to eat our packed lunches instead!
Our next port of call was the Roman Army Museum. It was full of artefacts, which had been excavated from various forts and mile castles along Hadrian’s Wall. There was also a shop with mood rings (that surprisingly didn’t work!) and £60.00 replicas of daggers that soldiers would have used. We then visited Housesteads Roman fort (a steep climb!) and learned about the layout and function of forts along Hadrian’s Wall. This gave us the opportunity to recall the adventures of Modestus and Strythio, two Roman soldiers posted here, as told in our Cambridge Latin book, and tried to hide under the elevated floor granary, just as they had done… but, as them, we were soon discovered!. We also compared a centurion’s living quarters with that of a normal soldier, and decided that a centurion was far better off.
After all this, we made our way to the Once Brewed Youth Hostel, where we were staying, and after a hearty meal went outside to play 2 hours of football on a very slippery gravel, which caused more falling over than shots on goal!
In the morning of Tuesday 27th we were ready for the visit we had all been waiting for. The name of the site (which for us students is perhaps more famous than “Rome” itself) is “Vindolanda”. Here the most thorough and rewarding of excavations has been, and still is, carried out. We were not disappointed: archaeologists were digging a newly discovered main road, we studied the remains of a fort and a vicus, climbed up two reconstructions of the Wall and turrets, and, of course, visited the museum. So many artefacts and letters have been dug up at the site and are on display that you can truly picture the lives of the soldiers as they patrolled the fort, as well as that of their families and the locals at the time.
Finally, before making our way back home we called in at Corbridge. This is a Roman site and museum. Here the walls of the fort have been so well preserved that they allowed us to understand the pride the Romans took in their engineering.
This was a truly memorable trip, and we are grateful to both Mr Allister and Mrs Gonzalez for having given us this opportunity. I would recommend anyone going there in the summer to enjoy the views and the History at their own pace!
Below are some photographs taken on the trip. Click on the photograph for a larger image
