Walking to Bleatarn from Carlisle, I had come across a young ex-service man who hailed from Burgh. He was very obliging in giving me such archæological information as he possessed, but it was not exact enough to be of much use.
Old Miss Sally ——, at Burgh, so he said, had a Roman stone in her garden with a terrible far-back date; anyhow, it was A.D. something! It was covered with moss, and she had got him to clean it. The church at Burgh was built of Roman stones, and he had been to the top many a time; it looked a terrible long way down. When he was a boy it was said there was treasure hidden under King Edward the First's Monument, and a terrible big crowd had collected, with flags flying, and ever such a to-do, wanting to dig it up, but they were not allowed.
He told me he had joined up at once in 1914, going straight off from Carlisle, without ever returning home to say good-bye to his father and mother. He just left his bicycle with his sister, and went off, not knowing he would be gone four and a half years! No doubt there were many such. He only had two "leaves" home all the time.
However, he came through all right; some pretty hot times, but he came through. And he saw some terrible nice places in Italy on the way home from Salonika.
He was such a cheery fellow that I was "terrible glad" to have come across him, although I did not feel much wiser when our ways parted.
The Vallum is clearly seen in Burgh, running through pasture-land to the north of the road. The Wall goes close behind West-end farm-house, and then—via Watch Hill—to Dykesfield, which may be recognized by its well-kept lawns, on one of which stands a Roman altar. Rhododendrons were in full flower in the garden, and dark yew trees round them made their rich colour look even richer. Here the Vallum is thought to end, but the Wall goes straight on down to the level of the marsh. It cannot be traced again between this point and Drumburgh, two and a half miles farther on.
It seems a very long two and a half miles across the marsh on a hot day, for it is a perfectly straight and level road, unsheltered by a single tree. The railway between Carlisle and Port Carlisle runs alongside, having succeeded the canal. Signs of the canal can be seen at intervals, where lock-gates are placed to hold up the streams that run into the Eden through the marsh. The marsh is a grazing-ground for many sheep and cattle.
To the north of Burgh can be seen the monument erected to mark the spot where King Edward I. died in his tent on 7th July 1307. He was encamped there with a large army, awaiting a favourable opportunity to cross the Sol way and enter Scotland. Tradition says that he had been warned in a dream that he would die at Burgh, so he had purposely avoided coming through a place of that name in Yorkshire. On arriving here, he asked an old woman what the place was called, and heard to his surprise the fateful name. A monument was first placed here in 1685, by the Duke of Norfolk, on the site of the heap of stones that had marked the spot; but after a hundred years it began to lean to the west, and in 1795 it fell. So the Earl of Lonsdale rebuilt it on a much larger base in 1803.
The village of Boustead Hill is seen half-way across the marsh, to the south of the road—a mere sprinkling of houses on a grassy knoll.
I passed no one on these 2½ miles but a shepherd, and a young couple with a motor-bicycle and trailer. They were seated on the top of the grassy dyke; she was winding wool, and he was holding the skein. As I passed, I said: "It's a gran' day," in the approved style of the country, and they cordially assented.