Hadrian's Wall 2011
Friday May 27th 2011
Day 4: Rest day and trip to Vindolanda Fort
Breakfast was a hearty continental, or you can pay a bit extra to have the full English. As we weren’t walking anywhere today, I didn’t feel the need for more than the cereal, fruit and the continuous supply of toast that Les was offering.
It was a lazy start to the morning. We were catching the 10:40ish AD122 bus to Vindolanda, which stops right outside The Old Repeater Station. This tourist bus service is first rate, with pleasant and professional drivers (some who do commentary on the Wall as they drive along) and it stops at all the main Wall sites. It offers a refreshingly different view of the Wall to walking along it, so anyone who gets the chance should certainly make use of the service.
Roman Vindolanda Fort is not actually on the Wall, but a
couple of miles south of it. It is positioned on the
Stanegate (Saxon word meaning ‘stone road’), the Roman road
linking Carlisle and Corbridge. The Stanegate became the
Roman northern frontier after the Roman’s original
withdrawal from Scotland.
If you are only going to pay to visit one site when visiting
the Wall, this should be it! You can easily spend a whole
day here. Like the other sites there are stone remains of
the fort and also its vicus (a town that sprang up next to a
Roman fort), plus a reconstruction of the stone wall and the
turf and timber Wall (originally to the West of the River
Eden, the Wall was turf) which shows exactly why they
rebuilt it in stone not long after.
Vindolanda Fort
Detail of the ruins of the bath house, with the
reconstructed stone and timber wall in the background
At the far end of the site, in the valley, is a reconstruction of a Roman temple, and the brilliant museum that houses finds from the site.
Reconstruction of a temple
Vindolanda is owned by a trust and every season there are
archaeological excavations. An excited digger told us of the
find they had made the day we were there, of a cloth bag (no
remains) which held finger rings and a broach. The day
before, they had found a silver coin.
This was the first time I visited the site and spent any
amount of time out looking at the fort remains as both times
before I was so distracted by the museum that we just never
got any further! On this visit the museum had just reopened
after an injection of Lottery funding and was now presenting
its top notch finds in shiny new updated displays. My
favourite things to see include the wall of Roman shoes and
the presentation on the Vindolanda tablets. The British
Museum named the Vindolanda tablets Britain’s top treasure,
and these small, wooden notes are a fascinating look into
everyday life on the Roman frontier. These notes are about
such mundane things as requests for socks and underpants and
an invitation to a birthday party, but they really make the
Romans feel immediate, and that their world was not as
foreign as two millennia might imply.
We had lunch at the cafe attached to the museum, which offers a good selection of sandwiches and soup and cakes and sweets.
We ran into the father and son from Mingary at the museum and wished them well on their journey as they were walking today and were due to reach Bowness on Solway two days before us.
Jess and I were ready to leave around 4pm and we got the second last bus back to Grindon. Jacquie and Susan stayed on for another hour as Jacquie wished to do some sketching. Back at The Old Repeater Station we took the opportunity to do some washing in the sink and write some postcards to friends and family before another tasty dinner served up by Les.