Then past "St. Dominic's Priory," with its modern buildings and prosaic brass-plate, to Byker Bridge, over the valley of the Ouseburn, which appears to be all valley and very little burn. At first I searched in vain for any sign of water; I saw only a valley full of rubbish. And the stony bed of the little stream contained even more broken crockery than stones.
Byker Hill followed, lined with small shops. I sighed as I remembered what it had looked like in the eighteenth century. For before "industrial necessities" claimed it (as shown in Dr. Bruce's third edition) it was a country road with a picturesque windmill on the hill, a large piece of Wall still standing, and a beautiful view of the city and the Tower of St. Nicholas' Church (now the Cathedral) in the distance!
Turning to the left along Shields Road, I was amused to see an old woman, in dirty apron and grey shawl, going round knocking at much be-curtained windows on the ground floor with a small hammer: "Lizzie, it's well-nigh six o'clock"; "Mary, it's time ye riz;" and so on, at house after house. It was my first sight of a "knocker-up."
The misty valley of the Tyne began to show on my right, with clusters of chimneys peering through the mist. I thought Shields Road would never end; but it brought me to Wallsend at last. There I turned to the right, and lighted at once on Hadrian Street! And, spying an "inscribed stone" on a building opposite, I crossed over, and this is what I read:
"The Eastern Gateway of
the Roman Camp of
SEGEDUNUM
stood about twenty yards
to the south of this spot
and remains of it were found
when this house was built
Anno Domini 1912."
The building is Simpson's Hotel, Wallsend. And so I really had reached the Wall's End (although for me it was the Wall's Beginning) in the midst of a wilderness of houses.
There are drawings in Newcastle which show the south-east angle of Segedunum in 1848, with grassy banks, and trees, and a peaceful river, and not a house to be seen.
I wandered down towards the Tyne now, to get an idea of where that south-east angle must have been, but it seemed hopeless, with buildings crowded thickly together as they are. There should be a stone to mark the site, but I did not find it. The Wall ran down from this corner right into the river, just as it did at the other end, into the Solway, at Bowness, to cut off the passage of an enemy.
While part of Messrs. Swan & Hunter's shipyard was being levelled, prior to the building of the Mauretania, this part of the Wall was discovered, not far from the river-bank. The Carpathia was "completing" at the time at the same yard, and several Wall-stones were placed in the saloon in a glass case.