[71]. The cottage is still standing in the neighbourhood of Wylam, in which George Stephenson first saw the light. Aided, in due time, by his son, worthy of such a father, he did more than any other man to elaborate our present railway system. The antiquary who has been revelling in the associations of the past will scarcely fail, as he looks down from his Wall-traversed heights upon the vale which gave birth to such a man, to give for a moment the reins to his imagination, and suffering his mind to penetrate the mists of futurity, ruminate upon the changes which the efforts of the Stephensons are destined to produce, not only in the physical, but in the moral aspect of society.
[72]. Derived from wall and botle, the Saxon for an abode.
[73]. Anciently written Throcklow. Low, or Law, is applied either to a low, round-topped eminence, or an artificial mound.
[74]. Hodgson, II. iii. 178.
[75]. Britannia Romana, 139.
[76]. Note in Lappenberg’s Anglo-Saxon Kings, i. 91.
[77]. The road leaves the Wall here, and keeps to the right of the hill. The north side of the hill is planted with trees, and it is interesting to notice in the summit of the plantation, a dip, corresponding to the depression of the fosse of the Wall.
[78]. Unable to resist the positive testimony of an intelligent eye-witness, I was, at first, disposed to think that he had included in his measurement some chamber on the inside of the station wall. I am now prepared to receive the statement without deduction. Some recent excavations at Risingham have laid bare a part of the curtain wall which has been built double, the intervening space, or chamber, being filled up with rubble and rubbish run together with lime, so as to form a solid mass of masonry of considerable thickness. The object of this arrangement may have been, to form a solid, elevated platform, for the use of the soldiery.
[79]. Both Horsley and Lingard had previously noticed it. Horsley says he was told by a countryman that ‘it was what the speaking trumpet was laid in.’
[80]. The aqueduct was not traced on the Halton side of the valley, so that the precise point where it joined the station is not known; it is now entirely removed.