Hadrian's Wall: The Final Frontier Of The Ancient Roman Empire | Full History Hit Series

it's the most well-known Frontier of the Roman Empire Hadrian's W for centuries it has fascinated antiquarians historians and visitors and I've come to learn more about it in this documentary I'm going to be going on the journey along the r I'm going to be visiting some of its greatest sites learning more about its [Music] history and I'm going to be learning about some groundbreaking new archaeological discoveries that continue to tell us more about what life must have been like on this farflung Frontier almost 2,000 years ago welcome to Hadrian's Wall [Music] it's 122 ad and the Roman Emperor hadrien is in Northern Britain Now by this time hadrien has been Emperor for 5 years succeeding his adopted father the soldier Emperor Tran but hen he's very different to his predecessor whereas trun was focused on expanding the Empire and Conquest Adrien is a bit more realistic he focuses more on consolidation he wants to be able to maintain the provinces and sustain the Frontiers so what hadrien does is he embarks on his famous travels around the Empire visiting Frontiers across the whole length of the Roman Empire and one of the Frontiers that he visits is here in Northern Britain in 122 for the construction of his famous wall he really traveled around the Empire he was very rarely in Rome he I think he's one of the Emperors who was you know the least amount in Rome for the length of his Reign um he liked to go and see his Empire he was very much a soldier Empire and on the go he was very interested in Greek culture um and he was kind of sort of called the Consolidated emperor in a way you know he didn't expand its borders anymore he was happy to consolidate them um we know he was gay he uh although he was also married and um he really mourned his the loss of his lover antinous um who died drowning in the [Music] n and here it is the wall itself in all its Glory this is particularly exciting for me because this is the first time that I've come to this stretch of of the wall and just look just look at it the size of the stones this impressive masonry originally we don't even know how high it would have been this is just a small Remnant but it would have at least been 12 ft High the thickness too 3 m thick initially that was what they wanted to build at right at the start and just imagine how impressive it would have looked back in the ran time saying this was in the Roman Empire separating it as it were from what Le be the wall stretches right across Britain from walls end in the East to the shore of the Soul W Earth at a length of 73 Mi it's an astonishing achievement which begs the question why was it built well the short answer is we're not exactly sure we have one reference in the literature surviving which says that it was built to separate the Romans from from The Barbarians and to be honest our idea of Roman Britain in the early 2nd Century is clouded we hear of references to possible unrest and turmoil in Britain at this time we hear of Roman detachments being sent to Britain 3,000 men we hear of experienced Roman governors being sent to Britain and of course the emperor hadrien himself does eventually visit to order the construction of his famous namesake War hyan was known as a consolidator Emperor you know he didn't invade or take in new um territories so perhaps he was wanting to just Mark the line the edge of um you know this Northwestern edge of the Empire it would have stopped some raiding you know it would have been more of a barrier than nothing but if you were really determined you could still get over it might have been a tax line CU to get through you there were lots of gates to come through but you would have had to pass through this line and the Romans would have stopped you so maybe it's to control access to tax it's a statement of power isn't it you know this vast um line across the landscape so lots of reasons back then and we're still trying to understand that we probably never will fully understand it construction of the wall starts in 122 ad and takes about 6 years the wall itself was constructed by detachments of the three Legions that were then situated in Britain and they worked in detachments and they worked at various places along the wall in tandem they were building it at the same time now the wall itself as you can see here was to be made of stone but not along the entire length of the wall because west of the river earthing initially the wall was to be made of turf turf was a tried and tested material for the Romans when constructing linear defenses it was cheap readily available and quick to erect but why the Romans initially decided to use Turf rather than Stone when constru in the western third of Hadrian's Wall remains unclear perhaps they're running out of time or resources it was several years later that this Turf wall was finally upgraded to the stone wall we see today so here we are at the northern side of the wall and it's important to remember that even in its original Construction haun's Wall was not on its own because in front of hen's wall there are a series of shall we say obstacles right at the front of hen's wool there would have been a ditch a deep wide ditch and in between the ditch and the wool itself there would been a little bit of land called the burm and in the burm this is what I find particularly fascinating there would have been what we could call ancient barbed wire these were pits and stuffed in these pits were full of branches and pieces of wood Tangled all together meshed all together they merge out of the pits and they form this most impenetrable line of obstacles as I said basically ancient bared wire and just imagine what it would have been like for someone trying to assault the wall first you had to go through this deep wide ditch you'd be climbing up the other side of the ditch then you'd have to get through this barbed wire and at the same time possibly you had Roman soldiers throwing down javelins at you shooting arrows firing artillery bolts even just to reach the wall there would have been these obstacles which you first had to clear then they'd have had to fight their way through the wall itself but what would that have been like I'm walking along a path of a possible reconstruction of part of Hadrian's W I say possible because there are so many Mysteries that still abound surrounding Hadrian's wool and its construction one such mystery which remains hotly debated is whether Hadrian's wool had a walkway there is still hot debate surrounding that and another key area is what did the top of Hadrian W look like nowhere along the world do we really have a sense of How High Hadrian's wo was in its original design we know that it was at least 12 ft high but beyond that mystery still abound our knowledge of the wall itself is limited but the Romans built so much more than just the wall scattered along the wall are the forts spectacular defenses that could house up to a thousand soldiers to show me around when of the most spectacular I met up with English Heritage curator Francis McIntosh Francis first of all this is an astonishing location where are we so we're at house Deads or verium if you like the Latin name one of the fors on the w and it's one of the famous fors because it's right up on a hill if you look at the view that we have and you can see all those lumps and bumps in the ground possibly one of the quaries that some of the stone came from to build the fort so the stone for building the fort it didn't come from miles away it literally came from the other side of the Hill yeah they'd get it from as close as possible because you know transporting it really hard you know cost a cost a lot of money takes a lot of time talking about the rans and their imprint here it looks like we're approaching the entrance of some really impressive ruins at house did yep so we're just south of the fort here you can see this is one of the buildings outside in the vcas and that's the south gate but first let's have a look in um one of these vas buildings here and I'll tell you a bit about the mystery that's been found mystery absolutely so we're looking at some of the buildings in the vas so the civilian settlement outside the fort these got Prime locations cuz they're just at the gate um and we don't know what all these buildings would have been some of them might have been shops some of them might have been taverns but in one of these buildings when they was excavated in the 50s and 60s they found two bodies buried underneath the flo what were the floorboards what do we know about these bodies one's a woman one's a man and the man had um a dagger in his back or through his ribs stabbed in the back yeah so it's called The Murder House you you can think of some great stories car you why that might have happened and what happened was it a bar bra that went wrong who knows oh who knows the Myster is that still about right next stop the fort itself so we've just left the murder house taking a few steps North and now we're in the fort proper that's right we're going through again that double Arch way we'd be asked for a password perhaps or um why are we coming in and then we enter and we're in the fort I mean the first thing I no is just walking in this fort is this is quite a steep slope exactly they wanted the prime position on the top of the hill but it meant that you know Logistics maybe would have made it a little bit tricky and where are we walking towards now we walking to the heart of it yes well let's walk up to the top and you'll see we'll go past the commanding officer's house on our left so we're already getting into the middle um and then the headquarters so do you want to look at the commanding officer's house absolutely let's have a look at that yes so this would have been for the guy who was at the head of the army contingent that was based at h the auxiliary unit that was based here would have had this entire house wow so really quite impressive when you think about the size of those Barracks that eight soldiers are living in now the commanding officers have a house that maybe isn't that practical for our British weather they've got a courtyard so we're just going down into what would have been the courtyard so a nice Mediterranean style Courtyard house but how much use you might have got on the outside home yeah I mean today it's glorious isn't it but you see and so he would have had possibly his own um central heating if you want to have we can go and have a little look at some of the the hypercor within his house I'm I'm still just getting getting to groups with the size of this house as well so this seems like a small Mediterranean Villa on the side of a North umland Hill yeah and it's vast when you look at it in comparison to a full Barrack run that would have held 100 men you know that the Step Up is huge the difference next I want to see the underfloor heating system the hyper cost it's astonishingly well preserved it is so these are the you know the original um bases of the hyper core so if you look further in um we'll carefully pop ourselves down there's a couple here that are made of kind of floor tiles um of stone and this one here this is an old old column base from something else that's been reused reuse and recycle recycling is not a new thing and for these I'm guessing they wouldn't ever seen these because this is under the floor but they're using reusable material to create these things such as under floor heating yeah so whatever works really as long as you've got something High to um hold the flooring so you can see there's another one there a column the the way around but as long it's the right height to hold the floor doesn't matter to them if you did the job it suited exactly so you can see here as we come up to this this flatter bit this is really is as you said the heart of the for the um headquarters building and it'll be identical to the layout of the headquarters building in any Fort the one at Chesters will be slightly larger because it's a Cavalry Fort rather than infantry so they a bigger headquarters cuz the Cavalry was seen as a little bit better than the Infantry but it's all the same thing and as you look forward you can see the eyes where the standards were strong wind would eath there's no strong wind visible here today unlike at Chesters but you've still got all these same features with the c the original Courtyard and you're walking through and it's different levels of access but you can still visualize it can't you just walk straight and you see that wall at the back as well being where the signal that's the back yeah that's the back so we' come into the courtyard and then you can see we've got another threshold with more rooms on either side and then this final threshold here comes into the sides and then underneath us is where the strong room is but not uncovered and here nicely a little collection of column bases um and column shafts that would probably have been used in the colonade along here but have no longer in position the officer's house and the headquarters are both very impressive but just behind them are the remains of another staggering structure a unique building believed to have been where the soldiers were treated so we know the Army had Medics and they were they cared for um their sick men but it's very hard to find whether they had a specific hosle building or not you know what does a hostile Building look like but houses has got this building that we don't have in any other fors on the wall and the nearest thing that we can work out it might be looking at comparisons this was probably the hospital so um we'll just climb over the wall um it's easier to get in this way and we're go this is one of the maybe what we call a sick Bay you know we don't really know um but again it's on a courtyard layout so if we come and stand here we can see this is the courtyard in the center there'd be a covered walkway so you're standing in the covered walkway here um and then all these small rooms around the outside presumably where the sick um were treated it's quite interesting that you have a courtyard in the middle of this Hospital building and and they said the buildings where people are treated is seems to be around the edges yeah so it's again it's a Mediterranean Courtyard sty you know they they build what they know but they knew that air and air flow was good and like they talked about fresh water and running water being better than stagnant water they knew that a flow of air was good for you know good health so they would want to be able to offer their soldiers some air and also keep the air flowing through the rooms I mean yeah and on a day like this especially when the wind's up from the cold you want somewh where air is Flowing but also it's not too cold it's protected yeah so it would have you know I imagine it was a little Sun trap and from what you're saying this is a unique example we haven't got any other examples of hospitals on Haan no no there's other buildings that are similar elsewhere in the Empire which is why they've kind of think that this is the most likely use of this building because normally in a fort we know exactly what to expect you have got Ming officers house headquarters the granaries the barracks all laid out you know very similar and then they've got this one which is a bit different so but we know they must have had hospitals or places to treat the sick because we talk we know they talk about you know treating the sick and velander has got you know reports that talks about the soldiers being off sick or being treated things so you're just always looking for where that could have happened so you had the luxurious commanders quarters a bit further south and now you've got the everyday Soldier yeah so these are not the second and third Century barracks in the fourth centuries Barracks get amended um and we don't know if that's because the treatment numers are different whether maybe families are allowed to move in but so they're no longer just eight men in a room but it's not too disimilar plan so you can still imagine it but these are what are kind of known as Chalet Barracks so they get separated so it's not one block split into rooms they're split into individual buildings so you see here there's actually a gap very long yeah yeah so there's gaps in between each block so it's again house said is a really nice example of showing change through the 300 years that the site was occupied absolutely well compared to the ones we saw at s Shields where the rooms said they're segmented they seem quite small you had eight men in there then you had the small bit for dumping equipment this one feels much more spacious and it's a later design well it's about the same size but we just don't know how many men would be in here and what the layout would be and for some reason they fully separated it so it's not that it's just an internal wall separating each and say you know the room that the cont bur you stayed in it's fully separated into an individual building we don't know why um and houss is one of the places where it's been found but we presume it happened at other forts as well as again you know the garrisoning of the fort changed and the makeup of the troops changed on the wall we talked about the troops there do we have any idea about the troops who did Serve by here yeah so at H stads we've got evidence for um Tongans who are from um modern day Belgium um from for ger troops from Germany and also potentially for archers from Syria Syria again that Eastern end of the Empire yeah amazing that's right while we're here you are very interested in where the wall met the fort absolutely yes let's go to have a look right edge of the Empire once more that's it so here Hadrian's Wall which comes along it becomes the north wall of the fort and then continues that way so you really are at the north gate at the edge of the Empire and again that standard double Arch you know two guard Chambers really impressive structure and and what do we know about House's construction why do they decide to put the north gate in the wall itself um so it's just we think to do the topography so all along the wall you've got various some forts the north wall of the fort is haun's wall some they're straddling it like Chesters so it's just to do with the topography at each site they make that decision and here if haen W straddled the fort the north half of the fort would be falling down that Hill I mean they had enough challenges didn't they building as we've talked aled about coming up but um it was just a s yeah they they did have that flexibility a little bit to be able to make those decisions and you're talking about geography and topography now we talked about the how far you can see back down south but also in front as well it this feels like a real dominant strategic position where you would want to build a fort on Hadrian's Wall yeah that's right so originally we think the well the fors are a secondary plan but the original Fort plan would be to have them every uh set point so every seven to six miles however I think the they worked out that the hous heads plan would have made it down in a big ditch so they've moved it up to here so again they've got a plan but they are able to think well that's not the way yeah we'll move it yeah up here and it's the same with the decision of whether Fort straddles or is um ating the wall so it's much more sensible isn't it to have the for top here on this Viewpoint the wall here is spectacular but there is one other feature of house Deads I'm Keen to see so Francis we've now come down to the Southeastern corner of the forest that's right I'm looking at this large rectangular structure here this looks like it has a purpose to do with water yep it's a big water storage tank and a really nice feature of this one here is this lead that you can see through some of the gaps and that's there um to join and bond the stones together to keep it watertight so this lead from nearly 2,000 years ago as he said was used to link the stones together to keep the water in the tank that's right a really nice survival oh and what are these channels here where would water go they're all just drains to catch this water cuz as you mentioned we're down in the Southeastern corner so there would have been a lot of water flow down to this bottom one so this drain goes out and joins the end of the toilet run whereas this one joins and goes into the toilet ah very multi-layered isn't it and you mention toilet let's go and have a look yeah it's the best views down at the bottom here and this toilet is a communal toilet would have served the whole of the fort yes yeah it's um one of the largest latrines that we know of um a really um kind of a rare survival for us to have it and in such good condition so if you have a look you can see those Stone Flags there they would have supported with think wooden seats um that would run all the way um around here the bowls or the troughs in the middle have water we think for hand washing and then this channel this drain here would have running water for you to dip your whatever your kind of toilet equivalent of toilet roll was obvious the famous thing is sponges but I mean they're not very common in Britain at Bear's Den up on the anonine wall in Scotland a large amount of moss was found in the bath house there and so we think that's something that's more likely it's an absorbent material and you'd find lots of moss here or maybe some other plant material that you could have um for your ablutions and it's all said flowed away down underneath that's right so that you know it's a a long drop and then there would be running water in this drain um that's um tilted so that it did all run away um down and out into the vus I mean I found that fasina said you got the civilian sessment right there the other side of this wall and one of the nearest buildings that there well they're close to in the fort itself are the toilets yes which is just draining away and uh you know once it's out of the fort the Army don't care it's not their business anymore is it no exactly house Deads is just one of more than a dozen forts along the wall but even that wasn't enough to keep the Border safe so there were other structures between the forts the Romans loved their regularity in their constructions and no more clearly can this be seen along Hadrian's wo than in their mile castles now these were constructed every Roman mile and a Roman Mile in today's measurements is roughly 1 and a half kilomet and I've come to one of the best preserved on Hadrian's Wall this is my castle 48 also known as portess burn mile castle and the first thing you see when you come here you notice it's on such a steep slope but for the Romans they didn't mind this at all and they adapted it to suit their needs now where I am now is basically near the southern Gateway of the M castle and there would have been a road leading straight through it so let's imagine I'm a traveler I've got a horse and cart a mu or cart or something and I want to go north of the wall I would have to go through this mile Castle so I would enter through this Arch Gateway through the gates at the bottom this southern side of the fort I'll be walking through there'll be soldiers all around these remains here are the remains of Barrack blocks is they were terrorist one here one there so there've been auxiliary soldiers all around roughly 30 or 40 of them I'm leading my goods and my animal right through and right in front of me there would have been this very imposing north wall embedded into Hadrian's Wall itself there was perhaps even a turret a like a pointed out bit on top of the Gateway up there very imposing and I would walk through the Gateway if they let me through I'd walk through the gates and out into Barbarian country now as I mentioned earlier the Romans they had ditch a ditch in front of Hadrian's Wall but this is where the Romans were clever they wanted to manage the traffic going North so in front of M castles they had a crossing of the ditch for so for someone like me with an animal this was where I had to cross to be able to get across the ditch and further north once again it really emphasizes how a key purpose of the mastes was to manage traffic this is a really interesting part of milecastle 48 PTR mile Castle because these are the stairs of the north gate at this mile castle that Roman soldiers auxiliary soldiers would have walked up to get to the top of this north gate and you won't find this anywhere else on the wall and on no other mile castles can you find steps like these and from it we can actually have a guess of how how big the wall must have been how tall it must have been or at least how tall it could have been so from this from the stairs we know that it was at least 12T high at this place along the wall this mile Castle doesn't only show us the milit AR side of an auxiliary's life another really interesting little feature about milecastle 48 is this round structure here this is a stone oven and from it we're learning a bit more about the auxiliary soldiers and their cooking their food and it's very interesting we suppose from this archaeology that the soldiers stationed here they were stationed here for a fair period of time perhaps a few weeks a few months we don't think there shifts in the mile castles were that long they probably spent a little bit of time here then they went back to the nearby Fort but once again it's a nice little insight into the food side of an auxiliary's life not just all the barracks and the patrolling and the managing so a nice another little angle that we can see here of life on the frontier but even these 81 castles weren't enough to defend the wall between every mile Castle on the wall there was initially to be two smaller buildings called turrets or watchtowers and at vindel Landa we lucky we've got two reconstructions of such buildings on my right we have a stone turret now initially these turrets would have been located east of the River Irving along with the stone wall and over here on my left we have a wooden turret and these would have been constructed west of the river earthing so why do we think that these turrets west of the River Irving were initially made out of Timber well the short answer is we're not exactly sure the debate continues but it might be because in the early 2nd Century ad this part of the world was more of a danger zone perhaps the tribes a bit further north were more hostile and so the Romans rather than spending more time creating a stone turret they wanted to get something up quicker and so that's why they used Timber but it's also possibly to do because that part of the wall it was made out of turf and Timber at the start too so perhaps to go in line with that so maybe it was because the tribes were more ferocious they more dangerous they were more hostile to the rans but eventually even these wooden Towers they did transform and they became Stone too wow so I've just come to the top of the stone turret here at feranda and we think in these turrets there would have been a few auxiliary soldiers Manning it mainly keeping watch be Beyond the Wall looking for small War bands of brigands and managing the traffic looking at the traffic coming to and from the wall perhaps going through nearby mile castles and as I mentioned we think that there might have been a few auxiliary soldiers here perhaps a messenger 2 on Horseback to raise the alarm to a nearby Fort or even milecastle if they saw any potential enemy activity to the north and also right here it might be that they had a Siege engine and in particular the most famous or one of the most famous Roman Siege engines called a scorpion now this was a really ingenious Deadly Device think of it like a big mechanical crossbow it was mounted normally on wood and it was highly accurate shot bolts at incredible distances further than a bow could shoot an arrow and as I mentioned it is highly accurate and you'd have someone here could possibly be guiding it around if they saw an enemy soldier approaching or someone who looked hostile and they were attacking maybe crossing the ditch or something they could fire this bolt thrower and if it pierced if it pierced an attacker they were almost as good as dead in most cases because these bolts were highly powerful and it is possible that the small group of auxiliaries stationed in turrets like these would have had one of these artillery pieces so as we've seen the Romans built so much more than just the wall itself it's the mile castles it's the turrets it's the forts but it's also linked there's Outpost forts north of the wall and it's linked to um you know the settlements the south of wall like Corbridge and on that you know Road Network dear Street and um down to York and um on the west as well the Romans also built one of the most enigmatic ancient archaeological features found in Northern Britain so I'm now just south of Hadrian's Wall and you can see here the slight sloping sze forming into a ditch and this was originally a Roman construction now around roughly the same time that the forts were added to the curtain wall of Hadrian's Wall they built another structure just south of the wall right here and this was called the valum it was roughly 20 ft wide and on either side it had sloping sides but also on top of these sloping sides they had a mound on each side and this mound was created by the workers who were building the valum building the ditch getting the spoil and throwing it either side to create this quite steep Mound either side so a very impressive structure in Roman times unlike the wall itself it looks like this alen this ditch was constructed not by the legionaries but by auxiliaries and what was its purpose well with so many things with Hadrian's Wall we aren't certain the debate continues possibly it was to Mark the southern boundary of the militarized zone so any traveler coming up from the south wanting to get past Hadrian's Wall when they crossed this ditch there would have been Bridges or something to cross the ditch for travelers with carts and wagons and the like when they crossed this ditch and they went North they knew that they were entering the territory of the soldiers that they were entering the military zone but as I said the debate continues almost 2,000 years on from its construction Hadrian's W continues to Fascinate from well-preserved forts like housesteads towering over the local landscape to the the mile castles and what remains of the wall itself no wonder it was Rome's greatest [Music] Frontier next time I'll be learning more about what life was like for those living along and nearby the wall I'll be visiting the most Northerly town of Roman Britain and a coastal for that was dramatically transformed when another Roman Emperor came came to Britain leading one of the largest armies ever to set foot on This [Music] Island last time I looked at some key military features of Hadrian's wool but the wall could not function without Provisions a constant stream of supplies was essential for those Manning it in this episode I'm going to look at two places that are not on the wall but which both had key logistical links to it and my first stop is here at the mouth of the river th I've come to South Shields on the Eastern edge of Newcastle quite an urban environment and not too far away from the sea but in front of me here we have got one of the most impressive reconstructed Roman Fort G ways that I have ever seen this is South Shield's Roman Fort known in Roman times or at least in the late Roman times as oura Roman Fort and this is where our story is going to begin the first Fort at South Shields was constructed around about 120 ad roughly 80 years after the Romans first landed in Britain with claudius's Invasion force and South Shield's construction it aligns nicely with the construction of Hadrian's Wall which began also around 120 ad roughly 122 ad but one of the things I should mention first of all is that South Shield's F was not on hran world itself it was too far to the east the actual Eastern end of hran w ended that way to the west across the time at Wall's end and the Roman Fort of se dunam but nevertheless SA Roman for it plays a key role in the story of hen's rule particularly in regards to Logistics and in more ways than one now the first way is what South Shield's Roman Fort protected because we believe that this fort protected a vital seap port at the mouth of the river th and this sea port would have been crucial to fing supplies in for those who were Manning the length of the wall it was this vital gateway to the wall from the sea and also for people who were coming to visit the wall and inspect the wo so South Shield's Roman fort one of the key roles it plays is protecting this port that helps to sustain those who are Manning the wall and also possibly during its early stages those who were building it some people in the past have speculated actually that the Roma supplied hadran's wall from the river ti so effectively if you are protecting the entrance to the river TI you're protecting access access to Hadrian's Wall and remember nearly all of the goods which went to the military in hadran's wall didn't come from the hinterland of hran wall didn't come from the North or west of Britain they came from the south and the east as an example all of the iron manufactured to provide all the weapons and all the equipment for the troops on hen's Wall came from the wield in Kent which then would have been transported around the coast up to the Northeast and then to the TI and then almost certainly using the th to get to adan's wall another reason why this fort is so significant in the story of hran war and also in the story of Roman Britain is what South Shields evolved into now around the time of the 3 Century there was Major change at this fort particularly with the development of all of these buildings here now these were granaries and you can tell that from the slightly elevated floor to allow air to come up underneath and in Roman forts it wasn't unusual to have Granary buildings but what's so remarkable about sth shields is the quantity roughly 24 granaries have been found here it was one of the main building types at this fort one of the really interesting things at South Shield is that you can see um this location is almost a time machine so you can see initially it was a fort uh with 600 men based there uh it then became this enormous Supply base to keep the seign Army 50,000 men in the field during the seven seign campaigns in the far north of Britain but later in the Roman occupation of Britain it reverts back to being a fort now initially it had two granaries then in the Severn period 22 so increased by a factor of 10 but later when it's not used as a logistic space therefore some of the granaries get reused as Barracks again for Roman auxiliaries and we're very fortunate because we know the names of some of these auxiliary units and one of them intriguingly remember where we're talking about we're talking about the far north east of Britain one of the units came from the Tigris in Mesopotamia so all that really survives of the grany today is this base but back in Roman times there would have been a floor of stone slabs above and underneath these stone slabs as you can see here were these channels and they also emerge here where the outer wall would have been now was through these channels that air would flow through and keeping the food stuffs above dry and also keeping pests such as rats away from the all important Food Supplies so it would have had all kinds of food stuffs like grain like meat perhaps even olive oil and wine it's astonishing the amount of granaries here and the amount of food that must have been here it really emphasizes that this Supply station it wasn't just for the soldiers at South Shields it was for soldiers across the length of this Frontier so why did South Shields need so many granaries at the turn of the 3 Century a Roman Emperor came to Northern Britain and his name was Septimus Severus Septimus cus was one of the greatest Roman warrior Emperors um he became the emperor in the year ad1 193 in the year of the five Emperors when he was the ultimate winner he became the founder of the Severn dinasty and ultimately at the end of his life this great conquering Roman Emperor decided that he wanted to do the one thing which no other Roman Emperor had ever done many had tried but no one had done it which was to conquer the very very far north of Britain and to give you a sort of a popular modern context this is almost like Game of Thrones it's so far from the normal for the Romans to try and do this in the scale that he did it that it was an astonishing attempt zus he came to South Shields and he thought this would be a key logistical base for his campaign PS further north being close to the C2 it was also very suitable for his Fleet he had the largest ever campaigning force on British soil over 50,000 men now to keep 50,000 men in the field you don't just need transports you don't just need training you don't just need the legionaries you need food and you need resources so therefore he decided to create three major Logistics bases on the Northeast Coast so the first one is on the ti which is South Shields the second one is at creman which is on the fourth and the last one is at carpo which is on the Tay and you can imagine when seus was marching North with his armies these Supply trains that would have been going to and fro between severus's Army and the supply station at South Shields so these granaries are a great example of how South Shields as a fort it evolved it retained its military purposes but also as we can see it became a key Supply station first of all for Severus but also later becoming even more Central to supplying those who are situated along Hadrian's Wall what I find so interesting about South Shield's Rona Fort is how the granaries they're all centered in the center of this fort and the barracks are located as it were their sideline to this edge of the fort now these Barracks you have an original here the foundations of the original and a reconstruction of what it might have looked like over there these Barracks were constructed around 225 ad so by the time this fort is a supply station and there were six Barracks that were meant to house the fifth cohort of ghouls now this big room at the end was meant to house the cohort Centurion and he had this luxurious space it was much bigger than the rest as we'll get on to in a second where he would have had his family his slaves it would have been pretty nice living unlike the people living right next to him because in here you would have had eight soldiers in this apartment this was called a coneria and you'll notice how this apartment it's divided into two you have here this big back area this larger area at the back this would have been where those eight soldiers eight soldiers would have slept it would have been pretty cozy and here on the smaller bit in front this was where they would have put their equipment this is where they would have prepared their meals and it was divided in this way all along the length of this Barrack block you have the same here and the same there and on and on there were five of these small compact Apartments so overall there were 40 soldiers of a cohort in one of these long thin Barrack buildings along with the Centurion in his more luxurious accommodation at the far end now this Barracks as I mentioned earlier was constructed in roughly around 225 ad but it didn't last very long because by the end of that Century it had burnt down we believe there was a raid on South Shields and this Barracks was victim to it and the name of this Barrack it was for the fifth cohort of ghoul but this auxiliary unit wasn't the only unit we know lived at this fort it's worth remembering that in the Roman Empire this is a very cosmopolitan place so it's not unusual to find soldiers operating in the far flung corners of the Empire well away from where they were born and they were recruited that's not just Warriors being recruited as individuals into a unit this is entire units so we have this unit of boatsmen Tigress boatsmen which may have used their own uh Maritime technology they may have not may not have used GS as we know them Etc they may have used Maritime technology which we know of from the time on the Euphrates tigress and they were here in ARA in the fourth Century ad ARA the name for the Roman Fort here is believed to mean the land of the Arabs so it might be that the name of this fort is linked to these boatsmen who came from an Eastern edge of the Empire to reside in South Shield's Roman Fort near the end of the Roman occupation in Britain Ara was first and foremost a military installation my next location started as a fort but became so much more to show me around I'm meeting English Heritage curator Francis McIntosh hi hi Francis thank you so much for joining me today welcome to Corbridge or corer as it was known in the Roman times well I must admit one of the most extraordinary things first of all was just how big the site is yeah yes we stood right right on the edge um and you can see in front of us the remains however this is only a small part Roman Corbridge would have been around 50 acres we think so it would have covered all the fields surrounding us and actually this is a really good point to talk about how it's connected to the rest of Roman Britain so over that Hill there dear Street the Roman Road that ran North from York up to haun's wall and past Haun Wall came down that Hill crossed over the river that's just out of view came up this field and then dog legged and came into the site and joined what we call the stain gate the east west road that goes all the way through to carile and having these two roads right in the center of this Roman cment is that key to why it's here um not initially so the Romans came here first as a fort well I say first 2 kmers that way in the late '70s for about 10 years and it was as part of the move up into Scotland so to conquer the entirety of the island as the Romans originally um tried and then they moved to here which is a better point we think maybe better VIs ability to monitor maybe the Bridge Crossing to see dear Street um and it was a for here from the late ' 80s until maybe about the 160s and as you know you'll know every for has a town on the outside of it what we call a vus when the fort was abandoned the vas and the civilians in there just took over and it became a town so that's when the crossroads gets really important because we think that's why the town continues rather than just being completely abandoned because it's on such a key point for trade it becomes a town in its own right it outes the fort that seems quite remarkable along the SES of Hadrian's W in its own right yeah it's amazing really and it's the most Northerly town in Roman Britain um at the moment we're on um one of the roads um outside the next stage of Corbridge so Corbridge is a really complex site so at some point in the second century after the soldiers have left some of them come back again there's a gap but it's not the auxiliary troops who come back who are Staffing and Manning the rest of Adrian's wall these non-citizen troops it's legionaries these citizen Soldiers the ones who built Adrian's wall and they set up shop or set up camp in what we call these two small compounds which are kind of like mini for so we're walking along the road outside one of them and they slot themselves into the town so we'll see when we walk further across site what are the Romans best known for straight lines aren't they nice Square walls you know Square shapes they can't do that in corage because they're trying to fit around what the civilians have already made I mean you talk about that complexity there and you mentioned the civilians and the soldiers does this really suggest that was corage quite a Cosmopolitan Society oh absolutely so we've got the soldiers who could be from you know any part of the Empire potentially we don't know exactly where all the troops came from we've got evidence of people speaking Greek here we've got evidence of a man from Palmyra which is modern day Syria so people from all over the Empire com into corage like you know up on the wall and they're here 2 m south of the wall making things selling things but all of these soldiers up on the wall you mentioned a man from Palmyra there I me that that's basically the Eastern edge of the Empire and he's perhaps a Trader or you know stationed here that's thing on the you know the Northwestern edge of the Empire you couldn't really get much further apart really in that time and be still in the same Empire and so what are these remains that we're walking past now so we're in part of the Eastern compound so this is when these legionaries came and the late 2 or third century and we're on a little Road in between so it's kind of like a mini fort they would have had some Barracks it's quite tricky to see because then after the legions we left again so they've come and they've left again these buildings get taken over again by civilians but there's um small Barracks over there would be a um a headquarters if we go into Western compound later we'll be able to say a really good um headquarters but you can see and I'm sure you noticed all the walls going up and down yes any thoughts wood underneath little dips absolutely so we are now as we are in most of site on top of the original Fort so when the fort was abandoned in the60s perhaps we think um the barracks seemed to been wooden they were demolished um and was flattened not removed and then everything was flattened for them to build whatever is on top obviously as you know wood rots so the lines there are where the wood been um put down and so kind of shoddy workmanship so we the Romans are showing a different face at Corbridge aren't they you know they're known for their straight lines really routine and square shapes which we don't have here plus not necessarily the best workmanship but I mean we don't know when the wall started to subside so it might have only been the last few hundred years in which case did its job for the Romans didn't it absolutely Rome's military Presence at Corbridge can still be seen today including the remains of a vitally important underground structure situated right at the heart of the fort so what are we looking at here Francis so this is the underground strong room underground strong room so every fort in the headquarters had a strong room where the standards were kept and it's where all the pay would be kept and any other kind of important documents so at Chesters you'll see we've got a strong room with the roof still in tact um but corage here we have a mini strong room because we've got a mini fort almost as our mini compound um and it's still those steps are still the original steps to go down um and it's right in the kind of it's meant to be in the most sacred part of the fort um to protect the pay both physically and spiritually because the standards were really venerated so if it's underneath the standards then it's also protected by the kind of respect of that as well as not stealing your colleagues pay the money well well may I go down the step absolutely do so just so again you can just see just how the floors Chang is this you know first step but yeah um so a very senior figure in the fort he would go down here underneath the headquarters you've got the standards just above and then he would go down here with the all important job of getting the pay bringing it back up and distributing it to the men that's right and maybe you know official documents that may or orders that might be secret you know we don't know but yeah to have this still in citu is really quite amazing I love the steps they're beautiful they're so solid yeah and these are the original sets they are y y look at that so it's been preserved so well because obviously it was underground so it's not been you know ravaged as much by the stone robbers as the the stuff up here fantastic well they definitely love their steep steps as well I admit the Roman military compounds at Corbridge are unusual and in more ways than one so Francis what are we looking at here so this is the outer edge of the Eastern compound now if you ask anyone to describe a Roman four or you know it' be playing card shaped all very straight lines however if you look here it curves around and then dog legs along and along and we can walk that way and that's because these buildings here which you can just see a little bit of there strip buildings facing Street Front probably shops which would then have workshops in the back and PS accommodation upstairs they're already there when these legionaries come back and for some reason cuz you know you presume the Army would have the power to kick them out they don't um I quite like to think it's just cuz you know they know someone would get really annoyed and it' cause too much hooa and they know they're going to be here and they've got to live alongside them but you see this is another one this is a short building and they've taken it right up to the edge so they haven't evicted this person but they've probably annoyed him cuz that's like someone building a conservatory isn't it right up to your conserv intimidating ancient intimidation if you walk up here we cannot socially distance because look how narrow it is so you know they didn't enro encroach on his space or her space but yeah it's quite interesting though how you see legionaries and shops Traders side by side once again and as you say it's it's not they're not tearing down the shops no they're building around them exactly and so we talk about in the third Century Corbridge is a little bit like a Garrison town so people talk about catrick don't they nowadays with the huge catrick Garrison um the soldiers and their families living in the town and that town thrives because of that Market at corage we've got soldiers and civilians living side by side and these civilians are going to be supplying both these soldiers and the soldiers upon the wall so it's a really symbiotic relationship probably all these Traders at corage wouldn't have survived if the wall wasn't there because that's their Market you know all these men being paid money but nowhere to go to spend it other than potentially Corbridge so even though Corbridge isn't on the wall itself it has this strong connection to the wall and that's right mertile connection economic connection yeah yeah I'm sure lots of the merchants here would have had you know contracts with the Army um personal links with the Army because you know the Army's up on the wall for almost 300 years claim to fame corage is here for longer but you know we don't like to make too much that um and so you know they benefit from each other the Army gets supplies and people here make money and talking about communication routes this is a major Roman route during the Roman occupation of Britain absolutely yeah so you can see all the way back to where those visitors are having their picnic in the sunshine it goes into that field and continues on all the way to carile which is about 30 40 miles um we don't know the line the whole way it's a bit of join the dots at some points we know it went all that way and um as we walk back we can see the different levels so when they excavated here so here we're about kind of fourth century corebridge and then if you go down we're in earlier levels because obviously the Romans built on top on top on top um so we can see the development of the Sayan its topography so the road itself we can see the evolution as it were over the centuries from the different layers that survive today that's right yeah so they didn't strip back and resurface it just resurf on top and this road's been used by the Romans for for 300 years plus before they left so yeah and what is the archaeology telling us about the shops that were situated alongside this main arterial Road wow probably a good time to take you to site 11 absolutely let's have a look and I mean site 11 is a bit of a rubbish name isn't it for a site it's not like the granaries or the compounds but it's because no one will commit to what we think it was or what it was meant to be so if you have a look at it it starts there there where those big blocks are and it goes all the way along to where you can see the Big Blocks there so it takes up an absolutely vast amount of the site and in the middle you've got these two buildings which which made of much smaller Stone than the rest so they are earli buildings that haven't been fully demolished so you know we said we're on top of the plan of the Old Fort yes they are the headquarters and the commanding officer's House of the Old Fort and someone's FL Ed most of this site to build site 11 but not finished those and got rid of them so what they one of the clues that we know this building was never even finished because if you're building some Grand structure you don't leave two ruins in the middle so site 11 it's huge we think it was Maybe started around the 160s 180s the you'll notice I say we think a lot of the time corage Archaeology is a little bit um iffy on precise date um and possibly was meant to be a big store room or maybe a market some people have called it a forum or melum um like and dict to things that they've seen in pompe and places but the back line which you can't really see because it was never built above the foundation levels was never completed just this South Range that we see and the two little wings and then behind it I always say it's a bit like a film set so it would have looked beautiful at the front where we're walking in this is our entrance here um but behind it it's just ruins in the back but these are our street front shops ah so this is our entrance into site 11 and each one of these was shops that faced onto the street so it became a row yeah a row of um shops um fronting onto the street where we are was be their kind of entrance ways and you can see just here their um bases for pillars so it would have been a covered walkway if occasionally you get rain in the north of England you have your covered walkway so you can shop and it was in this area that archaeologists discovered something extraordinary in the second century there were Barracks around here so we've got in our earlier Fort and underneath the road outside a Barrack someone we presume a soldier buried a chest so about this sort of size wooden chest with iron binding and W leather cladding and then filled it full of armor and the Lura segmentata you know that famous legionary Soldier um armor I would say it looks a bit like an armadillo with some personal possessions with tools with all and we call it very um imaginatively the Corbridge horde the corrid hord and said this was buried by a soldier before site 11 became what we now know yeah exactly so Corby to is an absolutely fascinating F but it's also a really good example of it's found here and we now talk about site 11 but when it was buried it wasn't site 11 so it can confuse yeah can confuse visitors but there were barracks and streets underneath here before site 11 was built and we don't know why he buried it um so modern day Army you know you've got the Royal engineer cores Etc and um Specialists and other things in the Roman army within a legion and within an auxiliary troop soldiers have all the skills so there would be Masons would be Architects there would be Medics clerics would also be armorers so our best guess for The corage Horde is that it was the kind of spares and the um tools of an armor who was also a soldier so there was parts of six suits but no complete suit there was 20 or 30 Speare heads so the iron bit but none of the halfs but all bundled together and then his tools and so if one section of your Lura your Lura segment are to break it's really clever you can just take that one section out and replace it with another so it makes real sense that the armorer he'd be collecting all the spares wouldn't he so that he could repair um his suit so it's absolutely fascinating because before that so before 1964 we knew about that type of armor you know it was known but no one found very much so they didn't really understand you know how you might make a suit how you might wear it how you might repair it which is really quite key when the Army are out and about and because so much was found at corage they were able to reconstruct it for the first time which is you know in the geeky world of ran military equipment really exciting but also in the wider World quite exciting because to understand how these things were worn and used um we found leather straps which held the bits of metal together so it shows how flexible it was CU before people had seen it on sculptures and been like well I don't know if that's really very practical but because of this find we were able to kind of find all this out which is amazing so we have this posible legionary SL blacksmith to thank for burying all this equipment that we've now found almost 2,000 years later exactly and then you've got the mystery of why did he bury it why did you not come back Mysteries bound don't they yeah so Francis where are we standing now okay well we stood right at the back edge of site 11 I thought just before we pop up onto the aqueduct I'd show you quite how big it was and it's easier to see now because if you look to where the road is you can see that panel there all the way along to that grass Edge and that grass bank that's site 11 it's a huge area within what we do consider an ancient Town isn't exactly it's that that's why it's puzzled people because it's so vast someone had great ambition for a huge project it wasn't quite realized but they still utilize the front part but yeah what was going on who was who was planning to build something so big well we're hoping you guys can answer those questions soon enough but what is up this hill then right so we're going to go and have a look at the aqueduct so all Roman Forts and towns would require water supply obviously um but it's rare to have the aqueduct surviving so it's a very big wide one um most of the Stone's been robbed out so it's all a bit bubbling you can see the drains on either side oh yes it would have continued up into that that field there we're not entirely sure which stream it came from there's a couple that it could um could have supplied the town from but it's just really impressive that how much has survived even though we know so much Stone robbing has gone on um very rarely you'll see this much in you know upon the waterall wall and so you can see where it's been robbed the width of it so it's a really big construction because obviously water is really important to the you know functioning of a town the Romans understood to some extent about germs and things not to the extent we would but they knew that running water was better than stagnant water so when we get to the Fountain we'll see they had settling tanks so the water wasn't sitting because they knew running water much healthier much better um and so I'm now in the aqueduct but it's been completely robbed by later generations uh modern corebridge over there A lot of it is built out of Roman Corbridge but you can see here this is part of the platform and so there would have been at least two tanks until the tank where the where people could come and get the water okay so it runs down so we've got some of the decorative uh stonework um but it's just again an absolutely vast construction isn't it and those stones there which are really warm that's from where from people leaning over and dragging their bucket so we know these things were used for you know a really long time and you will not see a fountain in a Roman for you might see a whale or a tank but not a fountain like this so this is something really unique when I love what you said about that scratching there from so the so the scratchings that you can see or the wearing away that is from 2,000 years ago from people reaching over trying to get water for absolutely yeah so some of them are quite smooth um over time but yeah so it's really staggering and we know so the big pillar behind you here and it's sister on the other side they would have held statues so it was ornate it was decorative wasn't just functional it was a big statement not bad for the northernmost town in Roman Britain is it exactly yeah I mean frany something that's just caught my eye is that little Gap underneath the road there what is that it's another drain Romans love drain so we go down and we can have a look better so you can see now we're below below the road surface that's a drain underneath the road to keep water flowing the rooms again understood kind of the power of water to destroy things as people will attest what nowadays and the all these drains would have been covered originally because this would have been where you'd stand to lean over and get get your water okay yeah so this is all basically under the floor level for when it was back in the Roman times so they would get their water but any water that was over spilled whereever it would go underneath into the drain and then down out of Corbridge exactly yeah from the fountain to the forts Corbridge surviving Archaeology is astonishing and there's one more building that has to be seen a very familiar type of building so Francis what have we got over here these look like the base of some amazing pillars yeah they're really vast aren't they and that's because they're here to hold up a covered Portico or a canopy to protect the entrance of the granaries we can see again we're talking about the floor level that's the floor level there so you got the looks like the remains of stone slabs above these channels underneath that's right so it's raised floor to keep the air flow so to keep damp away but also to keep pests away so rats and mice it's really impressive structure these granaries absolutely And in regards to these stones of course the wall is made quite a lot from local Stone and is it the same with Corbridge is it all quite locally quar absolutely because quaring and moving stone is a huge amount of work so you want to get it from as close as possible because you know it saves on money and time um so we know there's quaries kind of locally dotted around um sometimes it's difficult to know for certain if a quarry was used in the Roman period because often if it was used in the Roman period was using the medieval and the post medieval period also and they eras all the signs of the Roman uh working but people are starting to look at the geology and see if they can match up the the geology of stones but no as local as possible so this is our Eastern grannery along here if you can see the butresses that have been built on both so again Monumental construction um these were built to last um and what's really nice if we walk along here being careful again with our distance absolutely is you can see these windows well they're not Windows to allow air flow so really rare that these have survived in situ these old Roman vents were yeah yeah brilliant and because it seems to be a stap Roman fors throughout hinv South Shields also to the east you have all these granaries and it all seems to follow this quite similar design they knew what they wanted to do when they were building these yeah so if you went to a fort in Syria say you know say bares our our palmy was based in Syria and then came over here and set up at houses he'd know exactly where everything was laid out cuz a fort was a fort was a fort the commanding officer's house and the um headquarters being in the middle everything will be laid out on a grid system and it's partly I think Roman efficiency everything must be the same but also it's quite sensible because if you got woken up in the middle of the night with an alarm you know someone's coming you're always going to know how to get out because you're always going to be stationed in a fort that's laid out the same so it's good military tactics as well and given how much of corach has been uncovered there small amounts given how huge the site is how much have we still got to uncover how much we so we have this site here um that the visitors can see that was given to the nation in the 1930s but every field along outside of it has got R and Corbridge and we've seen that either through excavation in the OD wardian periods or by geophysical survey or aerial photography so the site's at least 50 acres um we know where some of the cemeteries are so we know that's definitely edge of the town but then in between where we know the town is and the cemeteries there's a modern town which is maybe covering up some of that so we we really just don't know it's just vast that's very exciting to hear for the future yes the archaeology at Corbridge and at South Shields has shown a remarkable light not just on how hadrians were were supplied but also about the economics of this Frontier from Shipping arms and armor up the river th to the rich variety of goods that would have been available along Rome's northernmost High Street these sites may not be situated on the wall itself but they're no less extraordinary [Music] next time I'll be visiting the best preserved Cavalry fort in Britain and an ancient Temple dedicated to one of the most mysterious Cults of [Music] antiquity so far in this series we've looked at several topics related to Hadrian's Wall we've looked at the wall itself we've looked at the military we've looked at the settlements we've looked at Supply but in this episode we're going to be focusing more about what life was like on the wall matters such as hygiene and worship how did people who were stationed on this Frontier adapt to Everyday Life these people who in many cases would have come from places hundreds of miles away so life on Hadrian's War would have being very different for a lot of those soldiers don't forget the Empire is huge it runs all the way around Europe parts of Africa out into the Middle East and then you've got Hadrian's Wall North England this is the very Northern limits so the weather here is going to be quite different it's quite Bleak and remote you don't really have many Roman settlements and certainly none of these settlements are like where you get further south in in England or further onto the continent we're not talking about big storm buildings we're talking about wooden Shanty towns one of the best places to get an insight into life for a Roman soldier stationed on the wall is here at this beautifully preserved Roman Cavalry Fort my guide today is English Heritage curator Francis McIntosh whereabouts are we now so we're at Chesters or sarum or kyum um if you want to choose a Latin name draw the fort on the wall um a few miles east of Corbridge and as we're approaching Chesters now we're approaching from Beyond the Wall yep we're north of the wall or in barbaricum maybe as the Romans might have um called it and we're entering the fort through the impressive North Gateway ah so this is the North Gateway this is the entrance to the Fort itself so to get in here you would have had to pass through the soldiers guarding the wall so you can see guard chamber on either side there would have been a double arched um Gateway and you would have maybe had to known the password if you were Roman if you were a non-roman you know Britain you know what's your business in the fort would you have been allowed in you we don't know we're crossing over the threshold we're now safe thank goodness in the Empire and these huge gateways I'm guess and looking at the foundations are they quite recognizable throughout the fort where these gateways would have been y so there's four main gateways and two small gateways most fors just have four one on each side yeah they standard layout standard you know location You' know where to expect them it's on a a nice you know a good pattern fantastic well I'm done to see what's inside the fort let's Lo and have a look so we're just walking over now to the center of the fort the heart of um a Roman Fort is its headquarters or prinkipia and you can see here it's quite nice being a bit above we can see the full layout of it so um we'd walk in go to the entrance and there's these um rooms off this side and then this open courtyard in the middle and there's quite a famous carving in the middle of the courtyard that um I'll see if can see absolutely absolutely this is a massive space isn't it really it's absolutely huge dominates the heart of the fort so this is the center of the fort it's where all the administration would take place you know people would come for the orders and it's where the strong room is as we saw um at Corbridge ah okay and we are now walking along the side of so we're in the middle of the prank in the courtyard these bits would be rooms here and you can see again you'll start see the same features pillars to hold a covered walkway and this is the drain where the water would drip off the roof um for these Offices here we're talking about something which isn't a similar feature from what we've seen earlier no I'm not going to say what was that because I think I know all that is we are staring out a penis yes or a phus a phallic carving as we say in you know romanies um the phus was a really important symbol to the Romans um Roman army symbol of strength and good look not just the kind of the classic fertility um so you see it on lots of um belt fittings and all sorts of um decorative pieces from um belts and other things that the soldiers wore but also you'll find it carved on Stones we've got one here in the headquarters so it's a symbol of fertility and a symbol of good luck back yeah and strength as well so yeah it wasn't just you know we see it just as about fertility and a bit of a joke but it wasn't that at all in the Roman period there's quite a few um on actually on haun's wall as well so it's always good to keep your eyes peeled when you're walking along okay we I shall do so this is the back area of the prinkipia the heart of the for that's right so you have come in through that door there'll be one set of guards there there'll be another set of guards here because you're going further and further into the inner sanctum so um we think that was a Podium perhaps where orders might be given and in here this in Chesters we have the shrine where the standards were kept the Ides you see here this is our strong room which was underneath the this eyes the shrines the standards and you get much clear a sense can you hear I said this is a really Sacred Space here and off to the side down here with what looks like thankfully some much easier steps to walk down you have the strong with the strong room with the roof so you can see the size it's much bigger it's almost double the size of the corebridge one and you mentioned this is the heart of the fort if you look that way if you know the ground was as it was in the RIT you could see the north gate so when you entered the north gate the street would lead up here so the eyes is right in the center and could potentially be visible all the way from there so it's really really important it's symbolically important but it's also in the middle it's most protected so someone actually possibly walking through that gate coming down from the south could walk through that gate and as soon as they walked through they could see possibly the glimmer of the standard in the far distance if the door yeah if the doors were open so and you know this is where it always would be in a fort so you've come into the fort and the South Gate's that way the north that way it's right in the middle well one other thing I just noticed that I do love that is the vating yes so we're original Ving absolutely and this was covering the the safe room the yeah the strong room and when this was discovered in 1801 the wooden door was still intact really yeah wow yeah any idea what happened to that wood now it disintegrated very quickly once it was exposed to the air unfortunately yeah yeah but we do know quite a funny story when they discovered it the workmen were extremely disappointed that there wasn't treasure in there oh a shame because you know they were told about this treasure room in the middle of a fort there was a few coins but not many can we go yeah do be careful it's a bit damper than the one at Corbridge but do come him beneath one of the rooms to the side we have a treasury a vault and what was kept in there was part of the solders pay so if they got ill or for some reason something happened they they paid into a fund very vaguely similar to to what we have today with National Insurance and that um and they also kept any booty they stole from anybody that they'd uh been marauding or invading with that was all kept in this room um you had that was underground for most sites um and then above that was the standard and it was believed that the sacred power of the standards and the Imperial cult kept all this safe oh you are you're right it is a bit D isn't it so you said the victorians they struggled with this as well yeah so we've got accounts of them struggling and they were putting in drainage to make it easier to access the site um and that's how they discovered the bath house which we'll go and see later so it's quite a nice coincidence really otherwise might never found it well I mean it kind of gives a sense doesn't it when you're in here how well very close in it is you know people coming down once again as we saw at Corbridge coming down from the main hearts of the prinkipia down here to get the money and perhaps the most secluded space bringing it up and then dispersing it to the Troops or whoever yeah and if you think they've come into Pia you walk through how many gates that's probably one two three maybe three or four passwords and sets of guards you've got to get past so yeah Mission Impossible Roman style isn't it but the real treasure of Chesters isn't in the vault itself it's the baths so Francis we're now south of the wo and the fort that's it we're out of the fort we're down by the river and coming up to the bath house one of the best parts I think of site it's remarkably well preserved how did they uncover it so um when we were up in the headquarters we're talking about the drainage the victorians were putting drains in you can see the land slopes away and the land would have continued down to the river bank and they put drains in and started to find the walls so that was completely covered until the excavations in the 1870s and 1880s so 150 years earlier we can just picture this is just being this this mound this slightly sloping Mound yeah and we would have had no idea this was there until they started digging here yeah so they put a drain in found a wall and uncovered the best preserved Bath House in Roman Britain well military bath house sure bath would have something to say about well I'm D to have a look you build it up let's go in and we'll go in the entrance at the bathers gone in fantastic certainly in the earlier periods of Frontier activity bath houses were hugely important it's where people gather where people go to socialize it's where they keep clean it's probably where they warm up right well let's come into the bath house brilant so this is the entrance yep so this is the entrance to the changing room and um you can see here are really famous niches every group who's ever visited Chester has to have a photo I think um in there and it's really interesting in this site because you can see so this where my feet are was the floor level when the bath house was first built you really around the time of the fork being built in the 120s this where your foot is is a bench and by the fourth Century this was the floor level so again that Chang in floor level but also Chang in use CU by the fourth Century this bath house was out of use cuz it was too big for the Garrison that was in the fort so they repurposed it um and we think well we know some evidence of buttery was happening here so we don't think it was a bath house we're not quite sure what was happening in here so really interesting just in those little Clues what you can see the change absolutely this is once again like at Corbridge we see over the centuries the progression of like the how high or how low the floor level was and it's the same here in this bath yeah and so this would have been the first room as you said this is the changing room yeah the changing room um there's a lot of debate about what these niches were for were they to put your clothes in were they for statues because we often know there there's um kind of religion and religious worship linked with um um bathing but you know we we don't know but they do make a really good place for a photo absolutely absolutely but where was the next place in so if we come through here and then you've got a choice do you go hot or cold first and dry or wet so we can completely change so what do you fcy should we go let's say cold first you want to cold so we're going to go this way so I'll try and avoid the puddle but normally you would Walk This Way um and we're going towards um the river and this was our cold bath or it's not quite a plunge pool it's a bit bigger than a plunge pool but you you go in here um and again this is quite confusing so if you have a look um the we're below the floor again this would be the floor level we've lost that so there's loads of things going on under the floor but yeah so cold room there then you could walk through into there to um warm up and you can go from cold to warm to hot seems that you've got this choice between going hot or cold you probably go hot first sweat out some of the dirt go to cold C to purify you can go back and forward so it's very much like a spa nowadays um although there wouldn't have been soaps and things you would have oils and strules to scrape off the the dirty sweat and so what's the stril it's a curved metal um Implement that you would use to scrape off your sweat on your dirt and your oil fantastic so let's say I've just had my cold bath where would I go next um let's go hot let's go hot so we go back retrace our steps in through the doorway and in here we're in a dry hot room um and the heat is coming through from this room now you can't see it very well cuz we're going to stand on it but underneath us is a hyper now what was a hyper under for heating basically so at the moment we're stood on Modern Flags but on that other side there's some original flags and down on that side is a Stoke hole some porle probably would have had to stoke the fire and there would been heat under the floor but also amazingly up the walls so you can see the floor tiles don't go to the edge of the wall and these things here which will survive leave an air gap so the hot air comes under your feet but also the wall so the wall and the floor would be hot so as you're remembering as you're saying there so perhaps a poor slave would be pumping this hot air underneath it would be coming under here to make this a very very hot room yeah it's hot dry it's not like so we they did have steam rooms but this one's more like a sauna um and then um next door the heat would continue to flow through underneath so this won't be as hot cuz obviously we're a bit further away from the um fire but still pretty warm so um you know a less super hot TAA well the last thing you me cuz you mention in these slits here that was interesting so this we know that there was originally a door here as well yeah um that to butt up against um so yeah and you can see how it's very smooth Stone worn from all the wear of you know hundreds of feet absolutely yeah so we go through this this way so we've got the pivot hole here that's what the door would have hinged on ah so that's a Hing spine yeah and now we're moving into the steam room so you this is dry this is even more um difficult almost to describe because all of the floor is gone so all the hyper Co that we were mentioning earlier is gone so we would have to float cuz this is the floor level in the r period um some steps have been created using some ceiling arches and we're inside what was the hyper Co it's you know up to my um waist if you imagine we'll be walking along here and the steam is Created from water in here so there would be a kind of a fountain um and then also a hot bath there so the steam will be coming off both so you've got hot dry hot warm and then down to the cold so I'm just imagining a Roman soldier he's come down from the fort he's gone through the changing room he's either gone down to the cold or up to the hot pot gone through the doors of course he said higher level back then and said now walking into the steam room and once again you have this connected chamber which is basically pumping and doing all the work to create this so the furnace is on that side um and there pools there but here there'll be water again with more heat to yeah a really steamy atmosphere and it would have been hot on the floors so You' have had to wear wooden we think wooden clogs um to protect your feet because you're piping heat straight up on Stone it's going to make it really difficult to walk on absolutely and I'm guessing this then so this this area must have been was it out of bounds was it was this was um so again it's um with the but with the another furnace on the outside so these are the channels to let the heat in but obviously had to have quite a good foundation cuz it's got water in whereas before you just have normal normally you would have hyper coost pillars for the floor but that wouldn't probably be presum be enough to hold a bath so they've put the these are basic four big pillars with the channels for the heat so yeah a bath a water fountain and then this is all heated and would all be very steamy because of the steam coming off those two water sources and what what other archaeology have we discovered from this very well preserved military B um so we've understood um the kind of the potential flow and the changes so you see here this is another doorway so the door jams would have been here and the door would have been in the middle so we could have go through that way there's a doorway there that's been closed up if you have a look so this was the original doorway it's been closed up so you see this has been used for such a long time they would have changed you know the way they used it interesting they found a lovely altar in here to Fortuna who's the Goddess of look and gambling so we know you didn't just come to the bath house to get clean you came to socialize to gossip and probably to gamble and to relax so it's really interesting to think about this place that the soldiers could come to but Andrew tibs thinks the baths may not have been quite as hygienic as you might think so the evidence from places like Pompei where bath houses are still standing is the actual area where you bathe the tub um they're large areas they're communal areas and and one of the issues there is you've got lots of hot sweaty muddy dirty people Ro soldiers Pompei you've got the heat it's all horrible disgusting everybody's then getting in the bath together um and it doesn't appear that there's any way to drain those baths so there are no sort of plug holes in some of the examples now it does vary from Bath House to bath house but you're talking about people being muddy dirty soldiers were working long hours they were working really hard they're going in they're they're oiling up they're scraping the dirt off going through several plunge pools and then all sitting together very communal and yet the bath water hasn't been changed for a while while not pleasant so could any soldiers come down and go to the own B absolutely bathing was an essential part of Roman Life it was kind of you know you needed to feed the soldiers you needed to give them wine and you needed to let them come to the bath house it's a really key part of being a Roman keeping clean but also the act of coming down like we talked about socializing you know it was a really essential part key part of Roman Life key part of Roman Life yes soldiers would not have been happy if they didn't have that close to the baths we also have the remains of one of the other standout structures from Chesters so Francis once again we're standing on a spot full of Roman history yep we've come down to the river so you can see the remains of the bridge hen's wall crossed 73 miles including quite a few Rivers And So It had to get across and here it was on a very impressive looking bridge and we're standing I'm guessing then on one fortified end of this bridge yeah so one um Edge would one peer would be here and then it would go went across in archers and you can see over there the remains of Hayden wall coming down and that peer there so yeah and how was this bridge linked to the Fort just up there so the wall crossed over on the bridge came up and then went that way and it hit the East Gate so Chesters is a really interesting thought because half of it north of the wall and half of it south of the wall so this wall and Bridge it combines together to cross this formidable River Cross yeah yeah that's right so haun's wall on top of this bridge so if you imagine the width and the size of haun's wall would have really required quite a large um structure of a bridge to get across roughly how many bridges like these are we talking about along the length of hen's wo so there's one here um that you can see and you can also go and see at Willer Ford near bird Oswald there's a really good Bridge there um that you can see remains of the the pier there was really impressive and once again I just have it so we've just been at the bars we've seen the pring ofer the center of the Fort we' seen the walls and the gateways and now we got the bridges it really emphasizes how the Romans were masters of engineering yeah and when people think Hadrian's Wall it's so much more than just a wall isn't it and all yeah and all just mixed together at the same time yeah right let's keep going okay ultimately Chesters was first and foremost a military Fortress so most of the fort was living quarters for the troops and their animals right well we've come into the barracks now um we can only see some Barracks um but the fort would have been absolutely full uh with them and Chesters the barracks here are for a Cavalry unit for Cavalry yes so if you look at this room for example this will be divided into two at the front three horses the back three men so they shared a room together yeah so for a long time archaeologists were looking for Stables when the new Cavalry unit was based here and they were very confused because they were finding Barracks but no Stables but we now know that three horses the front three men at the back I mean that must have been just thinking of the hygiene and the sanitation that must have been very very smelly having three men in the back room with the three horses right in front so at walls end excavations there in their Cavalry Barracks found urine um pits um in the front um but yeah and we think probably the bars are two stories so maybe the B A Hal off at the top but um you know you'd want your horses near you um they're a valuable asset um and also I suppose it means they're safe within the fort but yeah I don't know if I would have enjoyed sharing a room um with these horses and you know it's quite tight quite tight indeed indeed and is this Barrack sharing with the horses and the men at the back is this repeated along the length yeah so you can't this isn't a full run um of Barracks there would have been 32 men um in a turma which is a a Cavalry unit as opposed to um a Sentry which is an infantry unit so we've not got all of the rooms here but you can see 1 2 3 4 five Barracks here and there's some more under the um the field and at the end is the durian quarters so the decurion is in charge of the C of the turmer whereas a centurion is in charge of a century in an infantry unit but you'll see the vast difference in the accommodation of the durion compared to the ordinary Cavalry Soldier absolutely let's go and see and as we're walking up there now we say once again we have this line in the middle nice drain here and that's another Barrack so you can see how tightly packed they were it was just been row and on the other side there's another line of Barracks so really packed in cuz you've got to fit five 500 men and 500 horses into this fort so quite tight so just remind yourself this one room that's for the three men and the three horses together this is the duan's quarters if you come in to that wall to that back wall there so possibly he shared this with his um Junior officer and they possibly had two horses each but even so quite a big step up compared to compared to what we've just seen this is absolutely massive yes yeah it's quite luxorious isn't it so Francis what do we know about the Cavalry stationed at Chesters so the unit here was the second all of aorus so they're from atorus in Northern Spain so just one of those units coming from all of the Empire to serve up on the wall it just confirms the fact that we've seen across Haun W have all these auxiliary units coming from Far Corners of the Empire coming to this Northwestern Fringe to serve on this far flung Frontier yeah yeah it would be you know a real hotch po different languages different cultures all mixing so despite its remoteness Chester's Roman Fort would have been a Cosmopolitan place with connections to every part of the Empire you can also see these connections through the many Cults that were woried on the Wall the Romans worshiped many different gods and um they were very open to taking on New Gods into their belief system so there were the classical Gods like Mars and Jupiter but they also took on um local gods that were worshiped by the people in the the provinces where they began to rule even in a far-flung province like Britannia we see the beliefs from the East get brought into this Melting Pot of religious belief and this includes Cults or religions like the worship of mithas which originated and was inspired by by um religions in Persia and also um Gods like Isis and carapus from Egypt I'm a few miles west from Chesters the heavens have opened up it has started raining but I come to find and have a look at this secluded Temple almost in the middle of nowhere this is a mithum it is a temple of mithas found near the Roman Fort of carbra the cult of myth which is the worship of the bull it starts out in the eastern half of the Empire comes hugely influential with the Army more or less anywhere where The Army Goes The Cult of mithras follows the worship of mithas was very popular in Britain most notably amongst the army so we get particular concentrations of evidence of worship both in large centers like York where the Army were based and also along the frontier so at Hadrian's Wall now this was a methra and there are so many things which are really really interesting about this Temple and the first reason is its design you notice that it's long and thin now temples to mithas and people who were worshiping mithas mithas was worshiped in caves in a dark atmosphere in a cavern-like atmosphere and so you can imagine that this Temple when it was in its full structure it was have been dark it would have been quite gloomy it would have tried to evoke this cavern-like atmosphere in which mithas was worships so they are trying to replicate the myth of mythra which you being the bull the minur it's all about being underground in Dark Places so you would have had all these soldiers coming into this dark underground Temple fairly wet damp there would have had statues up the side and then you ' got a series of altars now what we have in front of us are the reconstructions of three altars found in this Temple and as you can see today back then there would have been votive offerings put on these altars for those hoping for good fortune in the future perhaps and as you can see this practice has continued to the modern day and don't forget these altars would have been painted they would have been very elaborate would have been very colorful um a lot different from what we see today these these big Sandstone blocks are all faded and weathered and and no color in them at all one of the reasons that the worship of Myas was so popular in the Roman army is because it was only open to men it was a secretive society and the activities and the rituals that were undertaken during a my raic worship at the temple were closely guarded this led to um mithas and similar Cults being seen as secretive and mysterious and thus they're often termed mystery Cults people would have been initiated in they were sworn to secrecy they weren't allowed to tell anyone about the cult itself and what they had to do in the cult and we also know that there was a hierarchy as it were you could progress through the ranks raising Rising higher and high higher up the mithraic order as it were if you completed a series of what they thought manly tasks where physical or mental tasks where you were in Peril or in danger and we know that this culture was very popular among the soldiers who were living along Hadrian's Wall and that's one of the reasons I found it so fascinating this Eastern cult on the Eastern edges of the Roman Empire Finds Its way to this Northwestern Frontier in Britain and becomes very popular and once again it really emphasizes the interconnected nature of the Roman [Music] Empire for me this journey along the wall has been really eye openening it's been a privilege to meet some of these historians and archaeologists who have been working on the archaeology at this Frontier but for me there are a couple of things which have been really fascinating the first is that and as cliche as it sounds is how Hadrian's Wall it's so much more than just the wall itself it's the mile castles it's the forts it's the turrets it's the nearby thriving settlements archaeological treasure troes such as vinder Landa Corbridge and South Shields but the other key thing is that we're talking about Hadrian's W now almost 2,000 years since it was first constructed but at the same time there are still so many Mysteries surrounding this so many questions that are still to be answered but at the same time every year every couple of years we see groundbreaking new archaeological discoveries being found on this Frontier that are answering some of these questions they might answer one question but it Springs up a whole host of new questions for future excavations to decipher one thing is for certain the future of archaeology on hadrien wo looks to be very exciting indeed [Music] thanks for watching this video on the history Hit YouTube channel you can subscribe right here to make sure you don't miss any of our great films that are coming out or if you are a true history fan check out our special dedicated History Channel History hit. 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Channel: History Hit

Views: 464,183

Keywords: history hit, history hit youtube, hadrians wall, hadrians wall walk, hadrians wall tour, vindolanda museum, vindolanda roman fort, vindolanda fort, hadrians wall history hit, hadrians wall history, hadrians wall documentary, tristan hughes, the ancients, history hit roman, roman history, roman britain

Id: UgM5irWCX4k

Length: 99min 24sec (5964 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 15 2024