Corbridge & Chesters

We’re in Hadrian’s Wall country. We set out early to explore a couple of sites near and on the wall, en route to our next AirBnB cottage in Longtown.

The first place to stop was Corbridge, or Coria as the Romans used to call it. This is not actually on the wall, but is an important town in the development of the Northern reaches of the Roman Empire, sitting on the crossroads between Dere Street, which ran north from York into Scotland, and Stanegate, which ran across the country from Carlisle to Newcastle. The river Tyne crossing, called Corstopitum, was heavily guarded, initially by a fort containing Roman soldiers. It eventually developed into a substantial town, as the locals realised the benefits of trading and intermingling with the Romans. It became the northernmost town of the Roman Empire. 

The Corbridge Lion, eating a goat

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…after the Romans left, the locals used the stones from the buildings, then forgot about it and it became overgrown, and then buried, and used as farmland. In the early part of the 20^th century, an archaeological dig found the remains of the old Roman town, along with some important finds such as the Corbridge Hoard – a collection of armour and weaponry, buried either for collection at a later date, or possibly to hide it from invading barbarians from the north. The importance of the find relates to some of the organic material found at the site – material which has usually rotted away completely in such hoards – which gave clues as to how the armour fitted together. Other finds at the site include the Corbridge Lion, thought to be a gravestone decoration, and the Corbridge Lanx, a solid silver plate which is now held in the Briitish Museum (a replica is displayed in Corbridge’s museum).

The size of the dig is deceptive: only about 10% of the total town has been excavated, the rest is hidden under rolling farmland. This was a substantial place!

Next, we headed up to Hadrian’s Wall proper. There are a huge number of sites of various degrees of interest and preservation along Hadrian’s Wall, and we’re not going to get to all of them. We went to Chesters fort, or Cilurnum, about 8 miles up the road. There is again a museum, with lots of bits of stone in it: 

The stone room

Water nymphs detail

Early dick pic

Romans were obsessed with their dicks

The site was excavated in the early 19^th century by the landowner, John Clayton. He was also instrumental in digging other sites along Hadrian’s Wall, and is credited with saving huge chunks of it for posterity. This site contains the commanding officer’s house, the barracks for the soldiery (from Spain, apparently – there was a lot of mobility in the Roman empire), and the best-preserved baths in Britain (the ones at Bath were actually rebuilt by the Victorians, and aren’t original).

Entrance to the baths

We stayed for lunch, then followed the route of the wall as we drove to Longtown, passing many hikers along the way. Both of these sites are now administered by English Heritage, as are many of the other places in this area. We’ll be backtracking and visiting some more sites that we passed, over the next couple of days.