Hadrian Wall’s Visible Remains 2
This covers what remains of the Wall, and how it survived.
What Remains are Visible?
Fabric not visible: this includes stretches of Wall surviving as earthworks and the Wall under roads and buildings, including the Military Road and the urban area of Newcastle.
Destroyed in the last 150 years: this includes wall destroyed by quarrying at Cawfields and Walltown, and more recently A1M at Denton and in the 1970s the A69 west of Heddon.
19th century restation: known as the Clayton Wall, rebuilt west of Housesteads, more on John Clayton later.
Visible remains protected by Historic England, this is the visible wall, which is sometimes difficult to identify, because of dry stone walls built on its foundations in the last couple of centuries. It cannot be certain that it is original, even if the stone is Roman.
Consolidated since 1985: this small length of wall was west of Birdoswald, indicating the lack of investment in the Wall in recent years.
Who Built the Visible Wall?
The following illustrates the problem:
HANSARD 1958 Extract from a House of Commons Debate
“It is reliably reported that on the section near Birdoswald four workmen are employed with only occasional supervision. They dismantle the Wall, nine feet at a time, stacking the square masonry and rubble filling and consolidating the foundations. The Roman mortar, which varied in colour from one age to the next and therefore shows repairs and alterations. which is a matter of importance to archæologists— is destroyed without record. Far worse, the work emerging from the hands of these excellent workmen is not Hadrian’s Wall at all. It is a copy—and one which has lost all the gifts of time.”
So how much of the Wall was built by the Romans? It was a matter of conjecture, but the stone was quarried and cut by the Romans.
Where are the Visible Remains?
From Plaintree half a mile East of Chollerford to half a mile west of Birdoswald are the vast majority of the visible remains. These are shown in the detailed guides listed HERE
There is little to see in the 24 miles west of Bowness and not much more in 24 miles east of Wallend.
The Man Who Saved the Wall
John Clayton was brought up at Chesters House, with Chesters Roman Fort in the garden, which he inherited. In addition, he purchased Carrawburgh, Housesteads, Vindolanda and Carvoran – as well as most of the Wall within this 20 mile stretch.
He rebuilt about a mile and a half of Wall, from Roman quarried stone.
As Town Clerk and prominent Newcastle solicitor, he played a prominent in the 19th century redevelopment of its town centre to great effect.
Without his efforts, the forts and the Wall would have been carted away for 19th century building boom, which certainly happened at the western and eastern ends of the Wall.