77·2d. View of the track of the Picts wall, Newcastle Ward, from baker mill hill. 4 Sept. 1725. West.
Stukeley delin.
It was a refined piece of management, and great knowledge of things, the Romans showed in the method of this wall; and a matter worthy of remark, that they chose all along to raise this work on the north side of the two rivers, that partly cross the island hereabouts, the Eden and Tyne. Many are apt to wonder at it, and think it was injudicious, imagining the rivers, with a very slender work on the south side of them, would have been sufficient security, and saved them much labour: but, if we consider this matter, we must confess it was not done without great consideration, and a master-stroke of military policy; for by this means the Romans took in all the fine rich ground lying upon the rivers for the sustentation of their troops, encouraged thereby to cultivate it, and build towns near, and make possessions to themselves and families, that they might live easy, and think themselves at home in these distant regions: here too trade and navigation might be carried on, and supplies of corn, wood, and other materials, conveyed from garrison to garrison; and in the times of the perfection of this work it must be looked upon as the best planted spot of ground in the island: and we may imagine the glorious show of towns, cities, castles, temples, and the like, on the south side of this Wall, by contemplating the prodigious quantities of their ruins and memorials beyond that of any other part of Europe, scarce excepting imperial Rome: and we have reason to think this will continue to be a source of entertainment for the curious and learned, when that is exhausted. Hither let the young noblemen and gentry travel, to admire the wonders of their native country, thick sown by that great, wise and industrious people, and learn with them how to value it.
Cæsar tells us the warlike nation of the Germans, the Suevi, gloried most in laying waste all the bordering countries around them, in destroying every thing that might administer sustenance to an enemy in approaching to their quarters. It was certainly equally political in the Romans to leave on the north side of the Wall that huge tract of waterless and dismal moor, a great barren solitude, where in some places you may walk sixty miles endwise without meeting with a house, or a tree: to ride it is impracticable. Thus, as much as in them lay, without the horror of barbarity did they remove the barbarians from their territories; whilst within the Wall, either naturally or by their industry, all things smiled like the garden of Eden: and indeed, toward both sea-coasts, about Carlisle and Newcastle, it is a very desirable and delightful country: and even in the midland moory tracts, by their great roads made every where, it was very good travelling; and in the worst parts, where their castra stood, and upon the valleys, it is now tolerably good, and was much better in their days, in the hands of those who could almost conquer Nature herself.
One of the Benwell inscriptions is plainly to be filled up at top thus; Jovi O. M. Dolicheno & numinibus Aug. Mr. Gale says, there is an inscription in Gruter, with Jovi Dolicheno ubi ferrum nascitur: there is another inscription, to Jovi Dolicheno, found in Wales: whence he infers with verisimilitude, that Dolichenus signifies not a topical deity; rather, some that presided over iron-works: but I cannot imagine what language it is. In the town I found three more inscriptions, though endeavoured to be concealed from me with a rudeness I never met before, even among the most unbred rustics. The fort at Benwell hill goes north of the road too, with an equal bulk; so that the Wall takes a circuit northward to inviron it: it is full of ruins too; so that it was really a city, induced probably by the extreme pleasantness of the place. A well was lately filled up there.
I find very plainly that the Picts wall, east of the town, came from Red Barns all along the street, so to Pandon gate, there being a great declivity, and a brook running without: then it crossed the valley within the town, where the brook runs, and went up the next hill to All-Saints church, which no doubt stands upon the Wall, out of which it was built: here is still a descent, where Silver-street is; and northward then it went directly to the lane called Panter-haugh, (probably from the old name, Panna, corrupted) with a descent still northward; so to the brow of the hill where the castle stands: here it met the Wall coming from West gate; and no doubt the site of the present castle was the ancient Panna, and this castle was built out of the ruins of the old one, and the adjacent parts of the Wall together. I suspect much, that a piece of the outer wall of the present castle, which stands on the west side in a tattered condition, may be Roman, at least built with Roman stone: this going upon the slope of the hill, the courses of the stone slope too, parallel with the declivity: but, be that as it will, at the foundation of it, a little lower, I saw a bit of the true old Roman wall, and indubitably so, made of white lime-stone, with mortar prodigiously hard, and ringing like a bell when struck upon. This castle has a great precipice eastward over Sand hill, and southward toward the river.
In the fields eastward, between Pandon gate and Red Barns, the counter-guard as I call that (vulgarly Adrian’s vallum) is plain, running all along parallel to the Wall; which method it observes where the ground leaves it that liberty. I suppose the city that belonged to this castle of Panna lay about Sand hill, at the end of the ferry. The south-west part of the town-wall to the postern was built on the counter-guard of that side. This town stands on three lingulas sloping toward the river. Probably William Rufus rebuilt this castle too, as that at Carlisle, and with the same purpose, as a guard against the pillaging Scots.
The manner of conveying the coals down to the river side from the pits, is very ingenious: a cart-way is made by a frame of timber, on which the wheels of the carts run without horses, with great celerity; so that they are forced to moderate their descent by a piece of wood like a lever applied to one of the wheels. The manner of rowing their great barges here is also very particular, and not unworthy of remark: four men manage the whole; three to a great and long oar, that push it forward; and one to another such a-stern, that assists the other motion, but at the same time steers the keel, and corrects the biass the other gives it. They observe that horses kept under ground in the coal-mines for two or three years, as sometimes they do, have their hair very fine and sleek, and as short almost as that of a mouse. We saw Col. Lyddal’s coal-works at Tanfield, where he carries the road over valleys filled up with earth, 100 foot high, 300 foot broad at bottom: other valleys as large have a stone bridge laid across: in other places hills are cut through for half a mile together; and in this manner a road is made, and frames of timber laid, for five miles, to the river side, where coals were delivered at 5s. the chaldron.