Housesteads & Vindolanda

It was a bit rainy and blustery this morning, but we set out anyway to have a look at a couple more of the Roman sites along Hadrian’s Wall. First up was Housesteads, known by the Romans as Vercovicium, or “the village on the slope”. Housesteads is the name of the farm on which the site sat in the 17^th century. It was bought up by John Clayton (remember him?) in 1838, and is now owned by the National Trust, but administered by English Heritage.

This is the most complete fort on the wall, and boasts, amongst other things, one of the best-preserved Roman toilets in Britain. We looked through the museum and watched a short film about the place, then walked the longish walk to the ruins themselves. There, you can see how the fort attached to the wall itself, and how the barracks were laid out. Romans built their forts to roughly the same plan all along the wall and elsewhere, only adapting them slightly as local topography required. In Vercovicium, for example, the Commander’s house is on a slope so needed to be changed a bit.

We had a long chat with one of the guides there about the surrounding countryside, whether it was forested or not, and how both the Romans and the local tribes (the Brigantes) used the wood in different ways.

The actual wall of Hadrian

 

The famous toilets

Our next stop was at Vindolanda. A tour was about to leave in 10 minutes when we arrived, and we were told this would take about ¾ hour. In the end it turned out to be twice that length. Vindolanda (“white fields”) is a huge, ongoing archaeological dig site, and another fort on the wall. Roman forts were generally built about 13 miles apart, as this was the distance an infantryman in full kit was expected to be able to walk in a day. That full kit would have weighed around 45-50kg. 

A Roman pizza oven used by the soldiery

The guide was very informative, not just about the site, but also about Roman life. The forts are not true forts, but garrisons for the soldiers. The Roman army was an offensive force, they weren’t concerned with building defensive structures. This is why Vindolanda isn’t on top of a hill, and also why they tried to stick to the same plan as far as possible, so that the soldiers would find it familiar no matter where they were posted. Most of the Romans at Vindolanda where from Northern Europe (France, Belgium, Netherlands) with some from Spain. At this time in the Roman Empire, only about 10% of Romans were actually Italian – it was more a “member of the Roman Empire” than an actual ethnicity. It was normal for the Romans to recruit non-Romans as auxiliaries, and send them off to far parts of the Empire to be stationed away from their home. Most would never return. This is how the Romans assimilated new peoples and tribes into the empire – within three generations, they would be fully Romanised. 

Archaeologists doing their thing

One of the challenges faced by the archaeologists here (and elsewhere) is how far down to dig. There are several layers of forts on the site, the older ones made of wood and the topmost made of stone. Due to the unique topography of the site, there is a very high water table and a number of springs which served the fort. This has preserved a lot of older organic material, which would normally have rotted away. This includes two crucial discoveries: a large collection of shoes and footwear, and other items like boxing gloves, made from leather; and the Vindolanda Tablets, a series of hand-written tablets, with military documents and personal messages from the garrison. There are over 700 of them, and more continue to be found. Most of them are held by the British Museum, although some are on loan back to the Vindolanda Trust for display at the site.

The Shoe Room

As the tour had overrun somewhat, we were starving by the time it finished. Fortunately we were close to the café, and we hightailed it there, beating the crowd (there were 30+ people on the tour) to secure our lunch. By the time we’d finished it was about time to start thinking about heading home, via a supermarket to collect some essential supplies.Tomorrow: more Romans!