{"id":4900,"date":"2026-07-07T19:40:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T23:40:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/?p=4900"},"modified":"2026-07-07T19:40:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T23:40:52","slug":"the-roman-empires-northern-border","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/?p=4900","title":{"rendered":"The Roman Empire’s Northern Border"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tuesday, July 7 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Road video and map<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today was a little strange as I had two completely separate interests that pulled me halfway across England and then back west again in Scotland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first was Hadrian’s Wall<\/em> which was the main focus of the day. When it was constructed, starting in 122 AD, it must have been a magnificent sight. In most places the wall was about 12 feet (1.6 m) tall and 8 feet (2.4 m) thick. In addition, there was a series of forts, each manned by about 600 soldiers, for defense and regular milecastles and turrets manned by less than a dozen soldiers to control border crossings. It stretched a distance of 73 miles (118 Km) from coast to coast across what is now northern England. Unlike Pompei and Ephesus which were preserved due to being buried, Hadrian’s Wall was exposed to the harsh weather and winds over centuries and was largely destroyed as its stones were removed to build roads, paths and buildings in more recent times. It has almost disappeared in the more accessible places and is in ruins even on the hilly, difficult to pillage sections. I visited Housesteads Roman Fort<\/em> which is, arguably, the best preserved section. From the air the outline of the fort is clear as day. The northern side is at the lower left of the image with the wall extending from the upper left corner of the fort and along the tree line in the lower left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image courtesy of Wikipedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, from ground level only the footings of buildings can be seen. There are guides and information boards with sketches to help visitors visualize the likely shape and size of the original structures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One can imagine the number of soldiers living here by the size of the fort’s supplies building below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The image below shows the thickness of Hadrian’s wall where it meets the corner of the fort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My second stop was at the Lockerbie Remembrance Garden<\/em> paying tribute to the 270 people that lost their lives in the bombing of PanAm flight 103 on December 21, 1988. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The garden is situated in a special section of the city’s fascinating cemetery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I finished the day with dinner at the Granary pub in Dumfries. This is a large pub and, when I walked in, I discovered it was almost completely full with at least 200 people. The Argentina-Egypt World Cup game was on the TVs and had just finished. I assumed that was why it was so full but I could not have been more wrong. I found one, small free table and went to the bar to order a drink and meal when all of the TVs switched to a grid of numbered squares and a very calm Scottish voice started calling out numbers. Two people left, the rest were there to play bingo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, July 7 2026 Road video and map Today was a little strange as I had two completely separate interests that pulled me halfway across England and then back west again in Scotland. The first was Hadrian’s Wall which was the main focus of the day. When it was constructed, starting in 122 AD, it … Continue reading The Roman Empire’s Northern Border<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[102],"tags":[40,103],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4900"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4900"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4914,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4900\/revisions\/4914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/relativerest.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}