The traces of this disordered state of society remained until the early part of the reign of George III., when the sheriff of Northumberland was first enabled to execute process in the north-western parts of the county. ‘Within my own recollection,’ says Mr. Hedley, ‘almost every old house in the dales of Rede and Tyne was what is called a Peel house, built for securing its inhabitants and their cattle in the moss-trooping times.’ Very many of these yet exist. Far different is the state of the district now. The men of the mural region, and of the vales of North Tyne, and Rede-water, are as upright as any in England. With the exception of a few aged individuals, an uneducated person is not to be found. Although, in addition to the ordinary courts of law, they have access to courts-leet and courts-baron, (those admirable institutions by which our Saxon forefathers gave to the poorest villager the ready means of procuring redress of wrong,) nowhere has the law less occasion forcibly to assert its claims. Property is secure, and land brings its full price in the market. On some of the extensive farms of the Cheviot range, not fewer than ten thousand sheep are kept; they are counted but twice a year, and seldom is one amissing. The value of land in Northumberland (exclusive of towns and mines) is seven times greater than it was at the commencement of the eighteenth century, and two hundred times what it was in the middle of the sixteenth. The antiquary, who will not fail to rejoice in the prosperity of the country through which he is travelling, as well as in the safety of his own person, may therefore go on his way cheerfully and in confidence.
The second mile-castle from Sewingshields, opposite the farm-house called the Kennel, is remarkable as having been built upon an absolute declivity. Hodgson observes that it had an interior wall on every side of it, at the distance of about twenty feet from the exterior wall.
THE BLACK DIKE.
Shortly after leaving Busy-gap, two narrow, but rather steep gaps are passed in quick succession, which do not seem to have obtained names. Through the first of these the Black Dike has probably run. This is an earth-work of unknown antiquity, which is supposed to have stretched, in a nearly straight line, from the borders of Scotland near Peel-fell, through Northumberland and Durham, to the south of Yorkshire. The scantiness of the soil on the crags of the Wall, accounts for its not being discernible there, and the ground immediately to the north and south of it is boggy. In a plantation on the hill side, opposite to where we now are, looking south, the dike exists in excellent preservation. The seuch, or slack of it, may be seen even from the Wall, on the western edge of the plantation, which is called the ‘Black-dike planting.’ From the information of those who knew it half a century ago, I shall set down its probable course in this vicinity. Coming in a south-east direction, it passes the east end of Broomlee-lough; having cleared the Wall and Vallum, it goes by the west of Beggar-bog, the east of Low Morwood, through the Muckle-moss, and so to the Black-dike plantation. Passing afterwards a field called the Black-hall, it is last seen on the north bank of the Tyne near the Water-house. It re-appears on the south bank at Morley, and passing Tedcastle and Dean-row, is supposed to go by Allenheads into the county of Durham. In the best piece of it which I have seen, the ditch is ten feet across the top, and about five feet deep, reckoning from the top of the mound on its east side. Within the memory of my informants, it was much deeper. The sheep were often covered up in it in a snow-storm, as they naturally went there for shelter. The earth taken out of the ditch is uniformly thrown to the east side, where it forms an embankment. No stones, or such only as were derived from the cutting, have been used in its formation. The only conjecture hazarded respecting its origin is, that it formed the line of demarcation between the kingdoms of Northumbria and Cumbria; and certainly the course pursued by the Black-dike is very nearly similar to the boundary assigned to these regions in the most authentic maps of Saxon England. The antiquity of the cutting may be inferred from the circumstances, that for some distance it forms the division between the adjacent parishes of Haltwhistle and Warden, and that it passes through bogs which probably owe their origin to the devastations committed in the north of England by William the Norman.[[99]] The Black-dike is laid down in the map of Northumberland which was prepared to accompany Horsley’s Britannia, and in Kitchin’s Map of Northumberland, under the name of the ‘Scots’-dike.’
South of the turnpike road, and behind a small house, called Beggar-bog, is a low freestone crag, which exhibits some quarry-like excavations, filled with the chippings of stone. It has probably furnished material for the Wall, the stone being of the same character.
The stream which we next cross is the Knag-burn; it forms the eastern boundary of Housesteads. Passing it, we scale the ramparts of this far-famed station.
THE ANCIENT BORCOVICUS.
BORCOVICUS.—‘This’ says Gordon, ‘is unquestionably the most remarkable and magnificent station in the whole island;’ and ‘it is hardly credible what a number of august remains of the Roman grandeur is to be seen here to this day, seeing in every place where one casts his eye there is some curious Roman antiquity to be seen: either the marks of streets and temples in ruins, or inscriptions, broken pillars, statues, and other pieces of sculpture all scattered along the ground.’ Stukely, in the vehemence of his admiration, denominates it ‘the Tadmor of Britain.’ Let not the visitor, however, approach it with expectations too greatly excited. There is very much to admire, but not a great deal to strike the eye at first sight. The altars and sculptured figures which lay in profusion on the ground when Gordon and Stukely were there, have been removed,[[100]] but the ruins of the place remain as complete and vast as ever. The city is, in a great measure, covered with its own debris, but the excavations which have recently been made, shew us that when they are continued throughout the entire station, the ancient Borcovicus will be the Pompeii of Britain.
HOUSESTEADS.
The station of Housesteads contains an area of nearly five acres. 'Half of it hangs on a slope, with a southern aspect: the other, or northern half, is flat, floored with basalt, covers the summit of a lofty ridge, and commands a prospect on the east, south, and west, far away beyond the valley of the Tyne, over blue air-tinted grounds and lofty mountains; and to the north of the Wall, over the vast waste of the forest of Lowes, where indeed, a proud, stupendous solitude frowns o’er the heath.'