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The Hadrian's Wall Path National Trail opened in May 2003. This long-distance footpath from Wallsend to Bowness-on-Solway mainly follows the line of Hadrian's Wall. From the memorial in the Segedunum Museum, it runs for eighty-three miles until it reaches a small modern shrine at the west end of the Wall at Bowness. This chapter suggests that the Trail fulfils two fundamental roles: firstly, it serves to recreate Hadrian's Wall as a linear monument, reconnecting elements that have been broken up by development and agricultural operations over 1,600 years; and, second, it serves an inclusive function by channelling foot traffic along the line of the Wall. The chapter discusses a new and more socially inclusive role for the Wall that has come to prominence during the past two decades in academia, popular culture, and tourism. It is at the interface between the ancient past and the contemporary world that the Wall continues to play a particularly prominent role.

Starting from a famous address by Francis Haverfield, this chapter reflects on the relationship between Romano-British archaeology and the politics of the British empire, challenging any simple equation between the Roman empire and the modern. It also considers the nineteenth-century history of Hadrian's Wall, and its restoration.

This chapter explores a programme of archaeological research conducted from the last decade of the nineteenth century to the 1940s. This work explored the date of construction, identity, and signature of these frontier works, by addressing the location, form, and sequence of the individual features of the frontier. R. G. Collingwood, one of the most influential archaeologists involved in this work, defined ‘The period of scientific excavation’ in his important article ‘Hadrian's Wall: A History of the Problem’, arguing that it commenced in 1891 and lasted until his own time. The chapter examines Collingwood's claim that archaeological studies of the Wall had become more professional and scientific. It also considers the extent to which the great era of excavation resulted in a philosophy of thought that has damaged subsequent research on the Wall.

This chapter focuses on two disputes that arose in 1930 and 1957 respectively, events that drew attention to the protection of the archaeological remains of the best-preserved section of Hadrian's Wall. The first of these public arguments was over the threat posed by quarrying. Large-scale extraction had commenced during the nineteenth century at several sites along the central section of the Wall and in some areas this substantially destroyed the fabric of the Wall. In 1930 it was proposed that stone should be extracted on a large scale at Shield on the Wall, six kilometres to the west of Housesteads. These works, if permitted, would have created a very serious impact on the physical fabric and setting of the best-preserved and most atmospheric part of the Wall, and the growing public appreciation of the importance of these remains gave rise to a strong resistance to the scheme. The chapter assesses the popularity of the Wall and the response of the establishment to the threat of quarrying, which swiftly led to a strengthening of the ancient monument legislation in order to protect the monument. It also explores the subsequent designation, management, consolidation, and display of this increasingly famous section of the Wall, including an assessment of the current significance of this iconic landscape.

The south-west gateway of the hinterland fort at Arbeia (South Shields), comprises another iconic image of the Wall. Opened in 1988 with considerable ceremony, it is one of the most impressive of the reconstructed Roman structures along the Wall. It was built directly on top of the foundations of the Roman gateway of the fort and represents part of a substantial programme of works that has uncovered and displayed Roman remains across urban Tyneside. Since the mid 1970s, the Roman forts at South Shields and Wallsend have been extensively excavated and the remains displayed on site, with adjoining museums and reconstructed Roman military buildings. This chapter explores these attempts to reconstruct elements of Hadrian's Wall, which forms part of a process that Barlow has called ‘the Romanization of the Tyne’. He has observed that the radical deindustrialization of Tyneside since the 1970s has led to a disassociation with the important recent industrial heritage of the area and the drawing of a connection with the more ancient legacy of the Roman empire. Barlow has also argued that this new identity allows for a distinctive negotiation between modern leisure-based businesses and the idealization of the lost heavy industry of this urban landscape.

Hadrian's Wall was constructed in the AD 120s and maintained for almost three centuries before ceasing to operate as a Roman frontier during the fifth century. Its scale and complexity means that it is one of the most important ancient monuments in the British Isles and one the most complex and well-preserved frontier works that once defined the boundaries of the Roman empire. In order to address the continuing life of the Wall, this chapter considers the significance of certain places along its line through an approach to its chorography. The aim of this book is to demonstrate that the Wall's Roman identity has been fundamental to its continuing vitality throughout the centuries, including its role and significance in the region, nation, and world today. At the same time, the monument has acquired a range of broader associations as a result of its long and complex sequence of use. It is a composite Wall, but with a Roman identity at the core of its living spirit.

This book has explored the life of Hadrian's Wall and has addressed the ways that texts and images have drawn upon the physical nature of the monument, while also considering how the monumentality of the Wall has been altered through the ages. Certain concepts inherited from the past have been transformed by changing political, religious, and social circumstances. This concluding chapter summarizes some of the materials drawn upon to address the three ‘ages’ of the Wall in this book by considering the semantic shifts that accompanied the changing names for the Wall. This is followed by a discussion of the inclusive Wall.

John Collingwood Bruce was one of the most significant Wall experts of the nineteenth century. In 1849, Bruce organized a tour for a group of interested individuals, the first of the Hadrian's Wall Pilgrimages that have visited the Wall on regular occasions since. This first Pilgrimage explored the entire length of the Wall and included a visit to the Roman remains at Borcovicium and the temple dedicated to Mithras just to the south. While little of the temple of Mithras at Housesteads was visible at the time of the first Pilgrimage, Bruce drew religious and imperial messages from this place of pagan worship. The impressive features that were just beginning to be uncovered at the fort inspired Bruce to draw a comparison between the fallen empire of Rome and the glorious contemporary domestic, religious, and imperial condition of Britain. He assessed the significance of the Wall's remains by emphasizing its contemporary political and cultural importance — metaphorically rebuilding its remains as a topic of current political, religious, and cultural concern. In this context, Bruce was reacting to almost a century of comparative disregard for the Wall, a situation that is explored in this chapter. The focus then turns to Bruce's Borcovicium lecture.

This chapter first addresses the writings of Robert Henry Forster, who called himself an ‘Amateur Antiquary’. Despite his claim to amateur status, Forster combined an interest in creative writing with considerable skills as an archaeological excavator and made a significant contribution to the Edwardian excavations at Corbridge. The discussion then turns to Rudyard Kipling' very different account of the Wall, but one that also aimed to bring the remains of the monument to life.

Travelling west along the line of Hadrian's Wall, just before reaching the River Tyne at Chollerford, the visitor arrives at Heavenfield. A large modern wooden cross marks this site of Christian pilgrimage by the side of the road running just to the south of the Wall. Heavenfield remains a significant place today, visited on the first Saturday in August by the Annual Pilgrimage travelling from Hexham Abbey to celebrate the cult of St Oswald. This chapter draws on the writings of Gildas and Bede to argue that the Wall had a particularly Christian association, since these authors viewed it as the final work of a lost empire that had introduced Christianity to Britain. The writings of Gildas and Bede indicate that during the centuries following the ending of Roman rule, at least some educated people in Lowland Britain retained an impression of the origin and history of the Wall. Bede's and Gildas' accounts are important in themselves, since they provide significant interpretations of the Wall, but they also had a sustained impact on later work.

This chapter reviews the formation of the northern frontier of the kingdom of England from the eleventh to the later sixteenth century. Through a study of the physical and symbolic roles of the Wall, it explores the origins of the concept linking this Roman monument to the delimitation of the northern boundary of England. This theme draws upon a significant location along the Wall's line, Lanercost Priory (Cumbria). Lanercost is a medieval religious house that was founded during the later half of the twelfth century, in the contested borderlands between England and Scotland. The construction of the Priory drew both physically and conceptually upon the remains of the Picts' Wall located 700 metres to the north. During the late sixteenth century, the buildings of the converted Priory were to become the home of Christopher Dacre, one of the Elizabethan gentlemen responsible for the maintenance of order along England's northern frontier.

This chapter explores the contributions of John Clayton and John Collingwood Bruce to knowledge of the Wall. It draws upon the section of curtain Wall reconstructed by Clayton along the central upland section of its course — the so-called ‘Clayton Wall’. While William Bell Scott was painting the canvas for Wallington Hall, Clayton was engaged in uncovering and rebuilding the physical fabric of the Wall. The chapter examines the idea of the metaphorical and physical rebuilding of the Wall through an assessment of the contributions of Clayton and Bruce to Wall studies, by selecting themes related to the way that knowledge and understanding were built up during the second half of the nineteenth century. The development of knowledge about the history and structure of the Wall at this time resulted in a fundamental re-conceptualization of its significance and a growing international appreciation of the monument.

This chapter addresses the recent afterlife of Hadrian’s Wall, focusing on the use of this monument in debates about English and Scottish nationhood, and in particular the frequently recurring idea that modern political developments might lead to the re-building of this ancient frontier work. The use of this Roman Wall, which formed the boundary of a substantial ancient empire, as a marker of national identity is evidently problematic, although it draws on the dualistic concept of a division between barbarian northern Celts and civilized southern Britons that originated with Classical writers addressing the Roman conquest of Britain, and has been periodically revived at points of conflict and division throughout British history. The chapter ends by suggesting possible interpretive strategies that can accommodate both the Wall’s unavoidable history as a symbol of ethnic and national division, and its (perhaps underappreciated) significance as a transnational monument.

This chapter was inspired by a painting entitled Building of the Roman Wall, which may be viewed at Wallington Hall in Northumberland. This imposing composition, completed in June 1857, shows the rebuilding of Hadrian's Wall from its foundations. Wallington Hall is a neoclassical country house that is maintained for visitors by the National Trust. The central hall is hung with a series of eight paintings by William Bell Scott, which portrays scenes from the history of Northumberland. Scott (1811–1890) was a well-known artist, poet, and friend of the Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The painting depicts ancient Britons and also Roman soldiers from across the empire, and it would appear that Scott was casting a reflective gaze on Britain's imperial concerns at a time of particular pressure by effecting an opening-up of the Roman frontier that drew upon the evidence for the diverse communities along this ancient Wall.

A series of colorfully enameled metal vessels name forts along Hadrian’s Wall in Britain. They preserve creative responses to one of the empire’s most ambitious construction projects, a complex fortification system that was never represented in official art. Three well-preserved vessels have been recorded in England and northern France, and more fragmentary examples continue to be registered with England’s Portable Antiquities Scheme. The designs of this expanding corpus draw on six key elements: a vessel shape popular throughout the empire; enameling technology associated with the Celtic peoples of the empire’s northern lands; letters of the Latin alphabet; place names in the Celtic language; a fortified wall motif with precedents in Hellenistic court mosaics; and a triskel motif common in Celtic metalwork. These intricate portrayals conjure a place that was far more than a wall, while illustrating the entangled aesthetics of an evolving borderland.

A serious uprising in Britain around the time of the death of Trajan in 117 threatened the security of the province, and Trajan’s successor, Hadrian, decided to restore order on the frontier provinces, including Britain. This significant setback may have resulted in the defeat and disbanding of the Ninth Legion. The restoration of the frontier in Britain required the allocation of additional military forces, and Hadrian instructed the building of a great wall just to the north of the Stanegate. This major building operation disrupted friendly relations with local people along the line of the wall and served as a measure to divide the people of the province from those to the north. Hadrian became the second Roman emperor to visit Britain in 122, when he inspected the building operations under way along the wall, and he may personally have commanded the strengthening of it with the construction of regular forts and a second substantial earthwork, the Vallum. A dedication ceremony on a victory monument at the east end of the wall that bore the emperor’s name commemorated his control of land and sea, drawing attention once again to the close association Roman commanders made between the conquest of Britain and the subduing of Ocean. The building of the wall confirmed the abandonment of Roman ambition to conquer the far north, although a number of forts positioned on the roads running to the north of the wall indicate that Rome continued to exercise control over the neighbouring peoples of northern Britain.

This chapter describes Roman Britain from AD 61–161. The period was one of the most remarkable in Roman Britain's history. Rebellion ceased shortly after the start of this period in most of what we call England. Either the Britons had given up the fight and accepted Roman exploitation and oppression or they decided that perhaps what the Romans had to offer was preferable to the instability of tribal politics. Britain developed in two ways. In the centre and south the towns started to take shape, hubs in a network of roads across which Roman communications and commodities started to proliferate. These roads also led to Wales and to the north to where the bulk of the army was now stationed. During the next century their building works would produce the greatest physical legacy of the Roman era, principally in the Hadrian's Wall system, which by the early 160s was finally confirmed as the northern border of the province of Britannia. The arrival of the codified legal system of Roman law, its enforcement through the Roman administrative system, and the appearance of legal documents also had a major impact on life in Britain.

Territorial structures feature in many studies of the past, but are the focus of very few. While books on Iron Age Britain are full of references to ‘tribes’ and ‘kingdoms’, their boundaries remain poorly defined. Although regional variation within Iron Age material culture was marked, it has traditionally been thought that Romanization led to a homogenization of society, its artefacts, and its architecture. Our understanding of Romano-British territorial identities remains poor and most studies have simply provided the seemingly obligatory map showing the names of civitates with or without schematic dotted lines between them. Within early medieval scholarship there has been a greater focus on territoriality and in particular the origins and development of kingdoms, but few attempts have been made to map their boundaries or the socioeconomic zones that may have underpinned them. Overall, our understanding of territorial structures in Britain during the late prehistoric and early historic periods is very poor. Until the 1960s—when the ‘culture-historical’ paradigm prevailed—the Iron Age, Roman, and early medieval periods were seen as having been characterized by frequent disruptions to society brought about by invasions and migrations. From the 1970s the idea that there may have been far greater continuity in the landscape gained favour, just as the idea that cultural change had to be brought about by mass migration went out of fashion. Most of the narratives on what happened in the post-Roman landscape were, however, based upon anecdotal evidence from a small number of well-known sites—Barnsley Park, Frocester, Latimer, Rivenhall, and the like—and so The Fields of Britannia (Rippon et al. 2015) attempted to explore the extent to which there may have been continuity within the countryside through an analysis of pollen sequences and excavated field systems. This suggested a considerable degree of potential continuity in most lowland regions, making a prima facie case that many Romano-British farmers continued to work the land, albeit with a shift in emphasis from arable to pasture. Following on from this, Kingdom, Civitas, and County has considered whether there may also have been continuity in the socio-economic and territorial structures within which communities lived their lives.