Rejoining the Wall, we meet, when within a quarter of a mile of Old-wall, with the site of a mile-castle. The ruins of the building slightly raise it above the general level, and prevent the plough biting into it. The road formerly deviated from its track to go round it. An altar, an urn, and several coins of Edward I., have been found in it. In the buildings at Old-wall, many Roman stones will be noticed, and the earth-works of both lines of the Barrier may be traced. The Wall is entirely uprooted; upwards of six hundred cart-loads of stones, within the recollection of the inhabitants, have been taken from it in this immediate vicinity.
Between this point and Stanwix, the works may be traced with tolerable satisfaction, an ancient drove-road running upon the site of the Wall for the greater part of the way.
BLEATARN.
At Bleatarn (blue tarn or lake), on the south side of the Wall, is a mound of earth resembling an elongated barrow; between this earth-work and the Wall, is a marshy hollow, which is said to have formerly been the bed of a lake or tarn. The Vallum takes a sweep to avoid this morass, and at its greatest distance is removed from the Wall about two hundred and twenty yards.
About half-a-mile south from Bleatarn, is the site of a Roman camp, which Horsley conceived to be one of the stations per lineam Valli; it is now called Watch-cross. If it be a station of this class, and if the order in which the stations are arranged in the Notitia exactly corresponds with their consecutive positions in reality, the name of it was Aballaba, which was garrisoned by a numerus or troop of Moors, under a prefect. There is, however, reason to doubt whether this was a stationary camp at all, as will presently appear.
As already remarked, no inscribed stones have been found to identify any of the stations west of Amboglanna with the list given in the Notitia. Even though this difficulty respecting Watch-cross had not occurred, to go on appropriating the names of the Notitia, station after station, guided solely by the slender thread of the order of their succession, would be a hazardous undertaking, and is rendered still more so by the uncertainty existing as to those which are, and which are not, stationes per lineam Valli. In our journey from this point westward, the stations will, therefore, be designated by their modern names; when the Latin names are added, it is to be understood that they are conjectural.
WATCH-CROSS.
WATCH-CROSS.—Horsley gives the following account of this station:—
A little detached from the wall, to the south, is a Roman fort, of about four chains and an half square, called Watch-cross; and as I was assured by the country people, and have had it since further confirmed, a military way has gone near it, or between it and the military way belonging to the Wall; for they often plough up paving stones here, and think part of the highway to Brampton to be upon it. This is the least station on the line of the Wall, and is as usual, plundered of its stones, as that at Burgh and Drumburgh. However, the ramparts and ditches are very fair and visible.
The common on which it stood having been enclosed about seventy years ago, and brought into cultivation, all traces of the camp have been obliterated. On a careful examination of its site, I failed to discover any fragments of Roman pottery, or other marks of Roman occupation. In those parts of Cumberland where the soil is not naturally stony, the site of a mile-castle or station, which has been brought into cultivation, may often be distinguished by the occurrence in that particular spot of numerous fragments of freestone. No such appearance here presents itself. The person who farms the ground says it is of better quality than the surrounding land; still, it does not seem to possess the peculiar fertility of a spot that has at any period for a length of time been the resort of a crowded population. Hutchinson describes ‘the whole ground-plot’ as being covered, in his day, ‘with a low growth of heath;’ the sites of all the other cities of the Wall are too replete with animal remains to yield, even unaided by cultivation, so coarse a product. I am therefore strongly disposed to think, with Hodgson, that it was a mere summer encampment. The spot has been well chosen; for, though not greatly elevated, it has an extensive prospect. Horsley himself had some doubts of the propriety of admitting it into the rank of a stationary camp, ‘by reason of its being so small, and having no remains of stone walls.’ The distance, however, between Cambeck-fort and Stanwix, which is rather greater than that between any other two stations, induced him to give it this position.