The Roman Wall / A historical, topographical, and descriptive account of the barrier of the lower isthmus, extending from the Tyne to the Solway, deduced from numerous personal surveys

by J. Collingwood Bruce

LEG[IO] II AVG[VSTA]

FECIT

The second legion, the august,

made this.

The other, much fractured, Horsley saw fulfilling the same office. He says, ‘I take it to have been an honorary monument erected to Hadrian, by the Legio secunda Augusta, and the Legio vicesima.’

WHITLEY CASTLE.

WHITLEY CASTLE is the modern name of another outpost, which is situated on the Maiden-way, as far south of the Wall as Bewcastle is north of it. An imperfect inscription found here, and described by Camden and Horsley, commemorates the dedication of a temple to Caracalla, in his fourth consulship (A.D. 213), by the third cohort of the Nervii. As the Notitia places the third cohort of the Nervii at Alionis, it is conceived that such may have been the ancient designation of the camp at Whitley Castle. The station stands upon the gently inclining side of a hill, about two miles north of the town of Alston. The railway approaches within a few furlongs of it. The form of the camp is peculiar, being that of a trapezoid, whereas the usual figure is that of a parallelogram. In another respect it differs from all the other camps that we have hitherto examined; it is surrounded by an extraordinary number of earthen entrenchments. On the western side, which is the most exposed, there are no fewer than seven ditches, with corresponding ramparts, and on the north, four. These earth-works are in a state of wonderful preservation. The strength of these lines, and the comparative absence, both within and without the station, of Roman stones, render it probable that the garrison trusted to breastworks of earth, rather than of masonry. The general level of the camp is elevated above the surface of the contiguous ground, in consequence, probably, of the mass of ruins which it contains. Its whole area, including the entrenchments and ditches, amounts to nine acres.

A large altar procured from the station is in the neighbouring farm house; the inscription is illegible, but it has on the upper part of its four sides, a carving in bold relief.

ROMAN DUNGHILL.

It is no unusual thing to find in the neighbourhood of a Roman station manifest traces of the dunghill of the fort. As might be expected, such a repository is replete with objects which, though once despised and cast away as worthless, well repay the search of the antiquary. Not far from the north-east angle of this camp a large dunghill was found, which has been recently removed for farm purposes. It contained numerous fragments of Roman earthenware and glass, as well as armillæ of jet or fine cannel coal. Its most curious product, however, was a large store of old shoes or sandals. The soles were all made ‘right and left,’ and consisted of several folds of leather fastened together with round-headed nails. (See [Plate XVIII]. figs. 3, 4, 5.) Were this the only place where these curious objects have been found, we might hesitate to assign to them a primeval date, but very many having been discovered in digging the foundations of Carlisle gaol, and some in clearing the buildings at Cilurnum, as well as other places, and being accompanied in every instance by other articles of undoubted Roman manufacture, we are entitled to consider them as the produce of Roman hands. Modern artists might examine them with advantage; Roman shoe-makers thought it no dishonour to let nature prescribe the form that their handy-work should assume.