What Are The Origins Of Hadrian's Wall? | Ancient Tracks | Absolute History

[Music] britain is crisscrossed by an amazing network of ancient trackways these remarkable routes are our oldest roads and have been travelled for more than 5 000 years he's quite small isn't he he's small but he's mighty small but mighty i like man walked by pilgrims and traders hunters and invaders celts and romans saxons and vikings each track is bound up in myth mystery and legend [Music] of all the archaeological finds i've come across when i heard about it my jaw actually dropped [Music] i'm on a quest to connect the clues and rediscover the stories hidden among britain's ancient pathways i want to find out what it is that tempts today's travelers to go back in time and rediscover these mystic tracks [Music] do you recognize the north star not the brightest star in the sky but it's probably one of the most useful it's a bit like me smell a leather you can still smell it 1900 year old leather isn't that absolutely amazing this week i'm tracing the roman road of deer street north from the english county of northumberland to the neighbouring scottish borders from hadrian's wall to the antonine wall i want to know what this journey from britannia to caledonia can tell me about the history and legends of ancient britain through the stories sounds and sights along its path these are the paths our ancestors once followed the ancient tracks that we in britain can still walk today [Music] i'm in the very north of england where a brooding sky meets a strikingly bleak and beautiful landscape stunning wild scenery stretches seemingly unbroken for miles and miles but this is a borderland that was so strategic the mighty roman empire was compelled to build this great road one of their major arteries running north from york and crossing into scotland their auspicious plans forged a fascinating path and nearly 2 000 years later people can still follow its ancient course the anglo-saxons called this track deer street nobody really knows why although diera is the ancient word for yorkshire so maybe it just means the yorkshire road but whatever its origins this is no ordinary path this marks the site of the great road north built by the roman army between a.d 79 and 81. [Music] the romans were superb engineers constructing thousands of miles of roads in britain they connected forts and settlements across this rugged landscape and created a border that divided britain and ultimately defined the two nations of england and scotland i'm going to travel north following deer street through hadrian's wall before crossing the border into scotland continuing across the lowlands and finishing my journey west of edinburgh at another roman frontier the antonine wall [Music] along the way i'll contemplate the infinite night sky hear the call of the distant past [Music] experiment with poisonous potions and confront fearsome roman invaders my dear street adventure begins in northumberland as i approach britain's greatest roman monument hadrian's wall this iconic boundary was built by the roman army on the orders of the emperor hadrian following his visit to britain in ad122 the roman empire stretched all the way from present-day iraq over in the east down to the sands of the sahara in the south but its northeastern border was right here at hadrian's wall 70 miles long stretching all the way across northern britain this massive wall was a monumental mark to the power of the roman invader on this side was the safe stable roman province of britannia over here were the barbarians caledonians right here where i'm standing was as far as rome was concerned the very end of civilization [Music] britannia wasn't only protected by the war but by maze-like forts like this the incredible vinder lander this hugely significant archaeological site was built abandoned and rebuilt over the centuries and today archaeologists continue to unearth its many hidden gems most days you seem to find something amazing have you got anything today we do we have a lovely roman shoe from the side they're incredible because each one's a little window into the life that took place here but the most important thing first of all is smell the leather you can still smell it i really can quite clearly smell that that's leather how old is that again well this shoe is about [Music] 1950 60 years old smell that get your schnoz around that viewers that leather is nearly 2 000 years old it's like quite extraordinary it is and it's very well preserved so we can pop it out the bag it may actually have walked up deer street possibly i mean these guys get to vindolando half of them at least by coming up deer street this is their main route coming up and down and some of the guys here actually serve as guards to the governor of britain so that's their way to work each one of these shoes gives us incredible detail about the populations we're here because we have as many if not more women and children shoes from the forts then we have men's showing us is not just a male preserve their whole communities are here in my pocket here i've got a little bit of bronze that's popped out a little bit earlier piece of roman armor why is it so brilliantly clear well that's been found in the same condition as the shoe this is from anaerobic oxygen free levels so you get no rest no decomposition that's in the same state it would have dropped almost 2000 years ago i could just stay here looking at your fines all day but i'm gonna have to get back on my way again good luck with your hike cheers to see to feel touch and smell the leather soles of the same shoes that walked along deer street is pretty amazing this is a tangible connection with the roman communities who made the arduous expedition and settled here at the furthest outpost of the empire and it's a contemporary literary connection that links hadrian's wall with the epic game of thrones during a visit here in 1981 its writer george r.r martin was inspired to conjure his own colossal wall i stood up there and tried to imagine what it was like to be a roman legionary martin wrote standing on this wall looking at these distant hills it was the sense of this barrier against dark forces it planted something in me but perhaps the word barrier is misleading as i continue along the wall a succession of adjoining roman constructions makes you rethink your perceptions of this infamous boundary [Music] so what is this building this is a mild castle this is caulfield's mile castle and there would have been one of these every roman mile old hole over hadrian's wall and these are basically fortified gateways can we tell much about how it was built there were three legions involved in building hadrian's wall the second the sixth and the twentieth legions and they seem to have been divided up into work parties but the wall itself is pretty elegant isn't it well this particular marquas are beautifully made there's some very nicely dressed stones what i don't get is that the wall goes east west but there were still roads going north south weren't there beyond the wall it wasn't like the berlin wall where you had no activity between the two sides hatred was never intended to stop north south movement these mile castles were intended for people to be able to get through hadrian's war is built right the way through the territory of people who are living here quite happily before and there was always going to be movement backwards and forwards so hadrian's wall actually welcomes the passage of people goods and livestock my ideas about this frontier are certainly being challenged and as i return to deer street my walk continues to retrace the footsteps of those ancient travelers who used to trek along this untamed terrain so how did you know how far you'd gone along deer street well every thousandth double step i suppose that's a double step they used to put up a cylindrical marking stone and as the latin for a thousand is m-i-l-l-e this is a roman miley stone but not only did it have on at the distance covered it also had the name of the emperor who was around when it was carved although frankly this one's been so eroded i don't think we'll ever know who commissioned this it's only just been found and it's been re-erected it's rather nice though isn't it and at least it means i know that i'm on the right road with my ancient satnav set to north i head into the otterburn ranges a place where natural beauty meets the battlefield and where the tranquility of this stunning landscape is frequently broken by the sound of gunfire and low-flying aircraft for this is one of the uk's largest military firing ranges the lands tightly controlled by the ministry of so i've been given special permission to end up the battle prize and the sound of war have been piercing this silence for centuries long after the romans had left this was still the major north-south political route this was the road up which the english came when they wanted to put down the scots for instance in the year 1298 the english king edward the first known as edward longshanks marched up here with his army when he wanted to put down the rebellion led by the legendary william wallace sir william wallace was scotland's braveheart a patriot warrior who embodied the very essence of scottish independence and rallied the troops behind his banner in july 1298 the scottish and english armies met at a decisive battle near falkirk where the scots were defeated the sun had finally set on william wallace's fight for scottish freedom and under the very same sky that i'm walking now an epic moment in scotland's misty past drifted into history and folklore if archaeologists want to reconnect with the ancient past they just dig a hole right but here on deer street at night i can do the exact opposite i just tilt my head back and i can make the most authentic link possible with my long lost ancestors by looking up at the night sky this window on the past is one of britain's most spectacular and protected stargazing sites i know the stars aren't static but would the constellations the romans saw be pretty much what we can see up there now very much saying many of the constellations we see were named by the romans and many of the planets like mars the god of war venus the god of beauty what was the significance of the stars to the romans i think many people when they looked up at the night sky they were trying to work out what was going on but they're also trying to use them to predict the future so i think astrology was big in roman times as well and then also um navigation they had a huge empire and to navigate from one place to the other i'm pretty convinced they must have used the stars it's funny isn't it i i'm trying to make an imaginative leap of 2000 years but that's peanuts compared with what's up there well if you take into account that our galaxy the milky way contains 300 billion stars and it's about 13.6 billion years i think yes or 2000 years is a bit of a drop in the ocean there is an immense joy in just looking up and with all our street lights and everything else we sort of lose track of that and just sort of the movement of the stars the changing of the seasons it keeps us grounded somehow so by looking up we get a better understanding of our place do you reckon that one might be the north stars it's hot because we haven't got that many stars out there but it's pretty far north i think you're right i think that is the north star yay it's not the brightest star in the sky but it's probably one of the most useful sprint like me [Laughter] [Music] the universe has no boundaries but back on deer street the end of england and the call of scotland lead me to ask seriously what is a border anyway [Music] with britannia behind me i can almost hear caledonia's call [Music] i'm continuing my journey north along the ancient roman track of deer street towards scotland many people who make this anglo scottish commute are familiar with the crossing at carter bar but i'm venturing a few miles east keeping on my dear street path to unite with a fellow walker and someone who might help me work out why a border is a border it's pretty good walking down there isn't it it's lovely fresh fresh and breezy and clear and not raining instead of roman camp over there that lozenge shaped thing yes i think it's probably three overlapping roman camps and according to the map there's also roman fortlet that skyline is more or less the border between scotland and england following the watershed do you know even if you hadn't told me that was the border i think i would have sensed that in some way it's border country yeah it's kind of wild and untouched isn't it and that's why they presumably decided they'd draw a line and say there's this side and there's that side and there's this this no-man's land in the middle when you say wild did there used to be a lot of smuggling border reavers that kind of thing yep yeah the fact it was unpopulated made it quite easy for the the raiders from either side to drive away their neighbors sheep and cattle and horses they'd come over at night and round them up and when they got hungry the women fake would serve a dish of spurs on the table and say there's no food here's your spurs get riding we need more mutton on the table should we get our spurs on and get to the border let's do that yes and as i approach the border i can really sense a unique identity here personified in history of course by the wild spirit of the border rivers these fearless clans emerged in the middle ages to rebel against both the english and scottish crowds somehow the border didn't divide the people living along it but united them is this it it is indeed there's the promised land that way it's a bit of an anti-climax well that's what you say it's a land of milk and honey well it may be but you don't know it's the land of milk at home it doesn't say scotland there and england on this side of the gate it's nothing it's better marked here than some places along the border some of the wildest spots is the odd rotting fence post sticking out of a bog and that's all you've got how long has this been the border this bit it probably since the middle ages but there's other stretches where it wasn't decided until the 18th century when the lawyers of the landowners neither side got together to decide what was the borders of their estates this may seem slightly heretical but given that we're not fighting each other anymore at least not for the moment is there much point in a border well generally speaking they are fairly arbitrary lines on the map and the way that they're used in the world today it's as if they um supply some kind of moral authority yeah as if you on that side are the undeserving we in this side of the deserving and you talk to people they don't identify themselves as scots english they might either describe themselves as borderers or reavers i suppose i better get on and head into the heart of scotland yep good luck on your journey so borders define a sort of no man's land or perhaps more of an every man's land where people can live peacefully side by side with barely a thought for a dividing line [Music] pushing north now and still following the ancient roman road i've arrived nine miles south east of the town of debra to find an ancient celtic earthwork this mighty hill fort looked down on the roman road where thousands of roman soldiers would have marched by a stone's throw from its ramparts surely then this is where centurions and caledonians would clash a battleground strewn with fallen warriors on top of that hill is a massive iron age hill fort called woden law which would have been built by the local people who lived around here the path along which i'm walking which you can't really see because it's covered by grass is deer street which was constructed by the roman army so what's the connection between the two when we made blackadder back and forth in the year 2000 we were all the romans on hadrian's wall and charging towards us came about a thousand red-headed men with beards and kilts that to me is how we english see the caledonians is there any remote truth in it oh no no no no there's a whole series of myths are bundled up into that um i mean one of the problems comes from the very name itself caledonians is the name we know from the roman sources but it does seem to be an iron age name it's originally a celtic word it means the hard men or the shriekers hard men shrieker my point is made partly true but it's in the 19th century the word gets used to mean everything north of hadrian's wall so who would the people have been who would have been living between present day edinburgh and hadrian's war the only sources we have are roman ones and how much do you trust the romans because of course they're writing propaganda they're not writing history but if you trust them you'd say the people around about here were a group called the silgovi what would the selgava have been like what we know really comes from the archaeology and the archaeology gives us quite a good picture of the iron age in this area changing through time so middle of the first millennium bc they're probably living in hill forts like that by the time of the roman period they're living in smaller farmsteads small communities with a central place where the tribe comes together would they have had a relationship with the romans they must have done surely there must have been something you don't put that many thousand soldiers back and forth through a country without some kind of relationship and one of the relationships will have been soldiers buying or extracting supplies from the locals so rome is a threat but it's also an opportunity yeah they've got nice stuff you have a market you can trade for things you can take some of these wonderful roman raw materials melt them down turn them into their own stuff [Music] and they develop a lifestyle that mixes the roman and the local in this frontier zone this edge of empire and you've found evidence of that yeah we find it especially in roman artifacts coming off iron age sites it's a lovely example from a wee pharmacy just over there and there they're making local prestige goods really flashy bronze horse gear they're also making roman broaches [Music] these very marketable objects discovered near deer street revealed that the indigenous people of the scottish borders were in fact using the roman road to trade goods and while doing so they absorbed the exotic styles of the roman empire and created their own unique frontier culture [Music] after the romans left deer street still remained in use for a long time didn't it yeah in the medieval period if you wanted to have a ramy head down deer street first stop corbridge burn it to the ground the roman roads were the best roads in this country until the 18th century many of the would-be kings around this area are taking on latin names they're using the latin language and the church the church is a good example early christianity draws heavily on roman models so long after rome is a threat it's still an idea in the mind and in fact the landscape the romans marched through would still have resounded to the sound of this iconic celtic instrument called the karnix the fear of an indigenous culture swept away by the might of the roman empire seems to be encapsulated in its haunting calls this magnificent instrument has been rediscovered recrafted and brought back to life the ancient cry of a far-off people and the end of an epoch as the romans marched in this really is an epic place and as its extraordinary prime evil whale sends me off along my dear street path i'm off to witness the restoration of scotland's ancient landscape absorbed to water scott's spectacular views and ascends the tantalizingly named fat lips castle [Music] the romans marched on northwards with the caledonians wisely learning to co-exist the way was paved for a rather less fearsome and rather more efficient invasion of the scottish lowlands [Music] and just a few miles north of the english border is whitten edge a spectacular feat of engineering that cuts dramatically through the landscape providing travelers like me with a walker's paradise [Music] this was the major road north between the first and the fourth centuries and it's easy to imagine isn't it the legions leaving york and marching onwards and onwards and onwards until eventually they disappeared into the misty realms of caledonia as you can probably see i'm rather enjoying myself so many roman roads have been covered over with tarmac over the years so to be on this flat straight very very ancient road is frankly a bit of a buzz everywhere the roman legions conquered they utilized the natural resources to meticulous effect they quarried local stone to build their roads and walls hunted the landscape to feed their armies and cut down trees to construct their forts it's incredible to think that thousands of years before the romans this landscape was blanketed in forests of birch hazel and pine by the time the romans arrived at least half of the natural woodland had been stripped away today only four percent of scotland is covered with native trees in order to redress this destruction today's dedicated ecologists are embarking on the mammoth task of restoring scotland's ancient landscape i'm swinging west of deer street to this 19th century sheep pen or stell to meet one man with a commitment to reclaim the past [Music] it's not a bad old view is it not bad considerably different than it looked less than 20 years ago all of this up until millennium day 2000 was all bare open sheep walk not a treat to be seen few tiny little clumps left only in places where sheep and domestic stock could not gain access how did all this start then this started with a group of us we have planted circa 600 000 native trees and shrubs how did you know what to plant we were able to analyze the pollen record stored up in a high peat bog and this record goes back about 9 000 years from that we can then extrapolate what we think the most common species were and roughly what kind of soils they were on could the stuff that you've introduced adversely affect the ecology that was already existent since we have started managing this everything has got markedly better there is more of everything you've got vast areas of heathland recovery heather blayberry on the tops you've got alpine and notable flora they have all now came down slope and are colonizing previously bare ground was this a lot of softy lefty ecologists sort of yes really a bunch of tree huggers who want to do some trees to hug what kind of animals and insects do you see around here now that you'd have struggled to find 20 years ago huge explosion bird life largely due to our planting trees and the insects that then use the trees all the plant life now is now flowering regularly under grazing a lot of plants never get a chance to flower [Music] you're not some southern hippie who's come here telling scots people what to do though are you quite definitely not i come from generations of border shepherds and i'm in fact the first in my family not to become either a shepherd or a cattleman here in the southern uplands of scotland so essentially what you're doing is the exact opposite of everything that your family has devoted their lives to how did they feel about that my father actually passed away lifelong shepherds i'd want him round to the idea and his sort of exact quote was luke sun plant your bloody oaks the sheep are done really and plant oak trees he has producing this panorama of indigenous plants and trees and i'm delighted too to help revive this ancient landscape what is it they say about small acorns so this little fella is going to become part of the woodland community yep so i whack it with my heel a bit yeah let's heal it in a little yeah see how naturally i planted that yeah it's not bad i'm gonna go now i've been slightly midge bitten and i'm a bit wet but it's been worth it isn't it yes thanks for looking after me [Music] today this land is of course at peace but some of the most iconic buildings in the borders were built as great fortifications to maintain control of the scottish lowlands one such edifice is this much-loved local landmark it had fallen into a sorry state of disrepair but much like the replanting of the lowland forests restoration work has sympathetically revived this rather seductive sounding structure [Music] this place is actually called fat lips castle and nobody quite knows why but i've been given three different explanations see which one you think is the most plausible number one is that there used to be wild goats around here that had fat lips and one particular goat saw the english coming and bleated so loud that it warned everyone in the castle the second one is the family who owned it had hereditary floppy lips and the third is that one particular owner used to like snogging the women as they entered the castle which one frankly i think they're all rubbish cartons like this were built throughout the scottish borders and used as lookout points and places of refuge they gave warning during centuries of turbulent clan feuds and english invasions [Music] well we may not know how it got its name but it's pretty obvious why it was built here this is border country and you needed something strong and defended something that would make sure that no one could ride over the hill come up here and give you a fat lip [Music] i could stay up here and enjoy this spectacular view all day but more architectural gems lie further along deer street's ancient track i'm continuing north to the river crossing near melrose and a site where centuries of engineering excellence converge in this field full of crops which look to me remarkably like turnips there once stood a mighty roman fortress called trimontium which was built in order to protect the crossing of the river tweed which flows all the way down there you can see that bridge which the victorians built in order to let 19th century travelers cross it it does have something of the roman about it doesn't it it's well engineered it's confident it's massive but sadly like the roman army it's now history [Music] this magnificent 19 arch leaderfoot viaduct once conveyed railway passengers across the river tweed now the railway is no more so i've got this extraordinary brick colossus all to myself today as i stand on this bridge and listen to the burbles of the river tweed i can bask in the delights of the serene scottish borders and in doing so i'm walking in the footsteps of a true scottish legend a man who spent a lifetime embracing the wonders of this region and whose classic historical novels include ivanhoe the lady of the lake and the robin hood of scotland rob roy it is of course sir walter scott this place is called scott's view and the story goes that sir walter loved this panorama so much that whenever he was passing he would stop here until eventually his horses would pull up without being given any instruction to do so and even when he died in 1832 and his funeral cortege was going past on their way to dribra abbey which was his last resting place the horses just stopped walter scott enjoyed traveling through the borderlands collecting stories poems and songs passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation and it was in his mythical landscape that he built his home the truly breathtaking abbotsford house this remarkable residence encompassed everything scott adored about his homeland and this love of scotland was immortalized in verse he wrote very enthusiastically oh caledonia stern and wild meet nurse for a poetic child land of brown heath and shaggy wood land of the mountain and the flood land of my sires what mortal hand can air untie the filial band that knits me to thy rugged strand from the modern point of view this house is a bit balmy isn't it it is a bit scott himself called it his conundrum castle it's very much an antiquarian's house and in one sense scott takes that very seriously because he's passionately interested in history but there is a part of him where he's poking fun at himself he knows this is a bit overdone he was so successful wasn't he um he was the jk rowling of his day in terms of sales throughout the 19th century down to about the 1880s scott outsells everyone else what do you think it was that people liked so much about his work at that time he's one of the people that brings back ghost stories the gothic at a time when scotland is beginning to be seen as a place that's primitive and attractive scott is writing about these wild and wonderful and mysterious places and he's also a great teller of ripping yarns is it fair to say that he was one of those late 19th century people who reinvented a notion of scottishness if not for the scots certainly for the rest of us part of scott's genius and even though today's sometimes blamed for creating a version of scotland scotland with two t's scott following robert burns is the man who broadcasts to the wider worlds the notion of what scotland is which still substantially we have today this custodian of scottish history and cultivator of caledonian culture will be forever revered among his compatriots and as i traveled further into scotland's law i'll be finishing my journey at the water's edge if i don't fall foul of an ancient potion first [Music] in medieval times this section of the ancient roman deer street between edinburgh and the abbey town of jedbury gained the latin name via regia or royal way it was in fact by then a very important route of pilgrimage and here at its midway point scotland's king malcolm iv founded a resting place for weary travellers called sutra isle deer street and via reggia transported not only pilgrims great armies and livestock into this area but also herbs and spices from the far-flung corners of the globe it may seem like a desolate place today but sutra isle was once a center of medical excellence the largest hospital in medieval scotland once stood here just by the side of deer street it was run by the augustinian monks and it was surrounded by vast church lands which funded its medical activities it's just a tiny little byway now but in those days it would have been full of travelers and pilgrims imagine the sounds and the smells and the noise not like today guys augustine monks were actually the leading practitioners of herbal medicine they were completely self-sufficient growing their own herbs for both the dining table and the infirmary incredibly more than 200 different plant species some used in medical application have been found at the sutra site this is wild hemlock a poisonous little beauty that still survived from those ancient times i'll leave the sampling of that to someone else [Music] and today just north of sutra at edinburgh's royal botanical gardens playing with potions comes with the territory modern-day botanists have recreated the hospital's ancient herbal garden cultivating this quite dazzling display of herbs poppies and of course hemlock i'm about to take part in a cookery class from the distant past and rather riskily i've offered myself up as a guinea pig for a medieval potion made from delicate red puppies [Music] the poppies are our homage to an ancient medieval formulation that was known as dwail and it included opium poppies which these definitely aren't these are our common red fuel poppies but the dwell itself had opium poppy hemlock hembene mandrake root so all the really quite potent herbs it would knock you out for hours about 12 hours and it was used as an anaesthetic an anaesthetic i find that really interesting actually because for years i've been making documentaries about various aspects of medieval medicine and the assumption always is that everybody who underwent any kind of operation would be screaming with agony no they weren't they were out for the count and for hours on end and and if this noxious little nostrum didn't kill them they would regain consciousness and they would make a full recovery just minus one or two limbs perhaps you do realize you've just debunked 12 years of my work sorry about that tony but we're not going to make some kind of killer anesthetic we can make a very simple very safe red field poppy syrup so it's just a small amount of the field poppies going in to warm water gotta change the color just yeah this is our indication that some of the compounds are are coming out of the puppy how's this doing that's done we can strain out the petals of the poppy so it's a lovely color the exquisite yeah really nice we're going to add sugar when this dissolves we'll have our red filled poppy syrup there we are wow that was very nice i could put myself to sleep with this yeah absolutely can you imagine taking that just before you snuggle down into bed at night that would just bring you a very restful sleep thank you very much very welcome there's no rest for the wicked allowed anyhow i need to keep a clear head if i'm to reach the end of my walk [Music] i can feel in my bones that we're nearing the end of deer street it must have terminated somewhere around here because we've got to the sea that's the firth of fourth [Music] we think it probably ended just up there at crammond which was a key strategic roman force although the only evidence of the romans left there is some shadowy earthworks next to a church actually that's not quite the only evidence [Music] it's a bit of a struggle to get up here can you see that sign that historic scotland have put up the worn carving above has been supposed to be an eagle carved by the roman garrison of crammond whether it is an eagle or whether it's even roman is uncertain that is roman isn't it that is definitely roman couldn't be anything else well i'm convinced you certainly need to be eagle-eyed to be absolutely sure [Music] but one thing is certain kramen served as an important strategic harbour for the roman garrisons who were stationed along yet another imposing war the mighty roman empire was defined by its ever expanding borders and in 140 a.d just over 20 years after the construction of hadrian's wall his successor antoninus pius made another push 100 miles north building a turf and timber frontier between the firsts of clyde in the west and fourth to the east but the antonine wall turned out to be the roman army's final assault into caledonia and in the end nothing more than a last gasp for the mighty roman empire presumably the antonine wall was built to protect the province of britannia from the caledonian hordes but within 20 years this great bull work this wonderful engineering project that was pushing the roman empire forward and attempting to stabilize its northern border had failed and the antonine wall was abandoned then the roman army went into retreat back down deer street until finally they got to the safety and security of hadrian's wall once again i've been on a wonderfully epic journey along deer streets ancient roman road the connection with land and history is tangible from gazing at the boundless night sky to contemplating centuries of bloodshed and a haunting call from the mists of time like all great journeys this has been an experience and an education a chance to reflect on deer street and the britain it dissects i've always known that somewhere around about the scottish border there were two massive walls which stretched from coast to coast and were built by the romans but it's only now i'm beginning to appreciate that that's only half the story because at right angles to those walls are roads roads which people have constantly rebuilt and maintained and unlike the walls they're not about stopping people preventing them from having access the roads are about movement they're about cultural exchange it's roads that unite us roads that give us knowledge and trade ultimately it's roads that civilize us

Channel: Absolute History

Views: 62,977

Rating: 4.8573389 out of 5

Keywords: history documentaries, quirky history, world history, ridiculous history, Hadrian's Wall, tony robinson, ancient tracks, medieval potions, potions, homemade potions, british history, celtic history, celtic horn

Id: W1FaDU2hhMY

Length: 46min 12sec (2772 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 13 2020