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

PLATE V.

Plan of PONS ÆLII AND OF THE COURSE OF THE WALL THROUGH NEWCASTLE ON TYNE.
And^w. Reid s.c.

NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.

Roman antiquities, which, when they abound, are so serviceable in defining the seat of Roman occupation, are unfortunately here rather scanty and unimportant. This cannot be matter of surprise. In the middle ages, Newcastle abounded in churches and monastic buildings. To the erection of these and of the Castle, the Town-wall, and Gates, every stone whether lettered, sculptured, or plain, that could easily be obtained, would be appropriated.

PONS ÆLII.

The precincts of the Castle have afforded the most important discoveries of this kind. The present County-courts occupy the site of a building which used to be called the Half-moon-battery. This was probably the position of the south-east angle of the station of Pons Ælii, and some of the lines of the octagonal face of the battery presented no doubt the actual curve of the station. To a certain extent the Norman builders may have converted to their own uses a portion of the labours of their imperial predecessors; appearances seemed to shew that the Castle wall between the Half-moon-battery and the Black-gate had rested upon a Roman foundation. When the County-courts were built, some important discoveries were made. Mr. Hodgson, who watched the progress of the excavations, has thus described them:—

In digging for the foundations for the Northumberland County Court-house, in 1810, a well was found finely cased with Roman masonry. It still remains below the centre part of the present court-house. It had originally been a spring, or sunk low down on the river bank, and its circular wall, raised within another strong wall in the form of a trapezium to the height of the area of the station, and the space between them traversed with strong connecting beams of oak both horizontally and perpendicularly, and then tightly packed up with pure blue clay. Some beams of this timber were taken up and formed into the judges’ seats, and chairs for the grand-jury room, now in use. Two of the perpendicular beams had very large stags’ horns at their lower end, apparently to assist in steadying them till clay sufficient was put around them to keep them upright. On the original slope of the bank next the outer wall, there was a thick layer of ferns, grasses, brambles, and twigs of birch and oak, closely matted together, and evidently showing that before these works were constructed, man had not tenanted the spot.[^[61]] Here also were exposed large remains of the foundations of other very thick and strong walls, one of which rose into the eastern wall of the Old Moot-hall, which was of exactly the same breadth, bearing, and style of building, and doubtless of the same date as the Roman foundations of which it was a continuance.

ANTIQUITIES OF PONS ÆLII.

The whole site of the Court-house, for several feet above the original surface of the earth, was strewn with a chaos of Roman ruins. I was frequently on the spot while the excavations were carrying on, and saw dug up large quantities of Roman pottery, two bronze coins of Antoninus Pius, parts of the shaft of a Corinthian pillar, fluted, and of the finest workmanship; besides many millstones, and two altars, one bearing an illegible inscription, and the other quite plain. The altars were found near the north-east corner of the Court-house, and near them a small axe, and a concave stone, which bore marks of fire, was split, and had thin flakes of lead in its fissures. The broad foundation walls were firm and impenetrable as the hardest rock. On Aug. 11, 1812, when the foundations of the north portico were sinking, a Roman coin was found (of what Emperor I have no minute,) and the original surface of the ground was covered with a thick stratum of small wood, some parts of which were wattled together in the form of crates or the corfs of collieries, but in a decayed state, and cut as easily with the workmen’s spades, as the brushwood found in peat mosses does. As there was much horse or mules’ dung near them, and some mules’ shoes amongst it, I thought they had been fixed there as crates or racks to eat fodder out of.