Hadrian's Wall

by Jessie Mothersole

On Carr Hill the mounds and ditch of the Vallum are more striking than ever. A little farther on, a tree-covered mound, known as Down Hill, intervenes between the road and the Vallum, which has evidently made a bend to the south to avoid the hill.

Passing Halton Red House, with its beautiful beds of wallflowers, I began to look out for signs of Halton Chesters, where lies the Roman fort of HUNNUM. A white gate on the left of the road opens on to a lane through a field; the lane is bordered by gnarled and twisted trees, and leads to Halton Tower and the village. This is our indication of the site of the fort, through the midst of which Wade's Road runs, cutting it clean in halves. Having this clue, it is easy to recognize in the pasture to the south of the road the buried gateways and ramparts. The ground to the north was under grass for hay when I was there. When it was being dug up many years ago, the foundations of elaborate buildings were found, and the hypocausts for heating them.

The picturesque Halton Tower, which lies immediately to the south of the fort, is the one remaining tower of the thirteenth-century castle, built of Roman stones from the Wall and the fort. The present owner is evidently a great lover of flowers. There are beautiful rock gardens (with a Roman altar among the rocks) and masses of rock cistus of every colour, especially a rich rose colour which was new to me.

Regaining the road and continuing westward, I soon crossed a lovely little ravine, with a stream flowing along the bottom, and beech-trees arching overhead. Its steep sides were decked with primroses and other flowers of spring.

A little farther on there is an interesting landmark; it is the site of the Portgate, the gateway through the Wall at the point where the famous Roman road running north crossed the line of the defensive barrier. This road used to be called "Watling Street," a name which was arbitrarily and mistakenly conferred on the entire length of Roman road from London to Scotland by archæologists of the eighteenth century. The mediæval and Saxon name was "Dere Street," and this name is correctly given to it for the first time in the 1921-22 edition of the Ordnance Survey.

William of Malmesbury, writing about 1140 A.D., refers to the Portgate, "where there stood a gate in the Wall, as may appeare by the word, that in both languages importeth as much."

A small Inn, the Errington Arms, stands on Dere Street, close to the site of the Portgate. I called here to ask for a glass of milk. There was no one to be seen inside but a postman, who had evidently completed his delivery of letters for the day, and was reclining on the long low window-seat, in a Panama hat and carpet slippers, reading a newspaper, with a glass by his side. I knocked on the table, and a barmaid appeared, who brought my milk, but I found I had no change left, so I was diving into my haversack for a note to change. Meantime the postman had settled his account, and the barmaid had disappeared.

While I drank my milk, the postman talked very pleasantly about the state of the roads, and the weather, and the coal-strike; but when I knocked on the table to summon the barmaid again, he said quietly: "You needn't do that; I told her to take it out of mine, as you hadn't any change." This was my first experience of being "treated" in a public-house! But the way in which it was done only made me feel that it was another proof of the comradeship of the road. So I thanked him, and went on my way rejoicing.

Soon after this I heard and saw my first curlew, a sure sign that I was nearing the moorland; and these beautiful birds, with their sweet whistling note, were my constant companions from this point for many miles onward.