Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/339

 332  known as Caracalla, and of his brother, Geta, have been turned up by the spade. About four miles hence, on the rocky banks which overhang the river Gelt, at Helbeck Scar, some inscriptions, popularly known as the Written Rocks, are visible—probably the record of the Roman quarryman—but they are barely intelligible, as I am informed, for I have not seen them myself. Crossing the Cambeck Water, we reached Hurtleton (the Town of Strife), where, in the nook of a field, called Chapel Field, are the remains of a mile-castle, and further on, within a quarter of a mile of Old Wall, the site of another appeared. To the west of Bleatarn the land subsides into a considerable morass, to avoid which the vallum takes a wide sweep. Half a mile south from Bleatarn is the site of a camp called Watch Cross, which was conceived by Horsley to be one of the stations on the line of the wall. If it be so, it corresponds, in point of succession, with Aballaba, which was garrisoned by a numerus, or troop, of Moors under a prefect. But the identity of this station is doubtful. The paucity of inscriptions leaves the means of identifying the succession of camps on this side of Amboglanna very much an exercise of vague conjecture. Whether a stationary camp on the line of the wall, or a mere summer encampment, Watch Cross, which is said by Horsley to have been the least station on the line, no longer presents to the eye a feature by which its site can be recognised. From Bleatarn the course of the barrier is difficult to trace by Wall Head, Walby, and Wall Foot (the names, however, furnish points of guidance), to Tarraby, from which village to Stanwix (Stone Wicks) a road runs upon the foundations of the wall.

From Stanwix we look back over a considerable portion of our preceding route, to where the Nine Nicks of Thirlwall bite the horizon with their acute fang-like peaks. To the south and south-west the eye wandered with pleasure over the grounds of Rickerby, and the rich course of the Eden passing the ancient towers of Carlisle, the Cumbrian mountains rising in the distance blue and sharply defined. The church and churchyard of Stanwix are planted on the site of the station. In pulling down the old church a fine figure of Victory, now at Newcastle, was found. On Castle Bank, the north bank of the Eden, opposite Stanwix, the foundations of the wall are distinguishable; but from this point we lose all traces of it until its track is again discerned just beyond the suburbs of Carlisle, where it becomes faintly discernible. At Carlisle—the Luguvallum of the Romans—we took up our old familiar quarters, under the hospitable sign of the Bush. A morning was well spent in viewing the castle and cathedral. The keep of the former is a good specimen of a Norman stronghold, the surrounding walls include a space of a mile in compass. In one of the cells of the keep, the wall bears testimony to the calamity of many a high-spirited gentleman who, in the ’15 and the ’45, found here a brief sojourn before ascending the scaffold, in coats of arms, devices, and other inscriptions. From the keep a fine and extensive prospect commands the fertile course of the Eden, and the Solway Firth, with a wide stretch of Scottish land, Criffel and the chain of Scotch hills extending to the west as far as the eye can reach. To the east the cultivated lands subside into barren wastes that reach the feet of the rugged Northumbrian crags. Southward, the plains of Cumberland stretch to Penrith, where they are bounded by Crossfel and Skiddaw. The cathedral, commenced in the time of William Rufus, contains, besides the heavy but impressive features of the Norman style, a series ending in the decorated style, of which the east window is a very fine and perhaps unmatched example. We now turned our backs on “merry Carlisle,” and proceeded to the village of Kirk Andrews, where the vallum again makes its appearance, and a heap of stones in the churchyard are conceived to be the remains of a mile castle. In a garden of the village an altar, found at Kirksteads, a mile south of the wall, is preserved. The inscription it bears is as follows:—

From the village the wall follows the river by a north-west course, through a field called Long Wall, the vallum running in a line with the road. A quantity of stones in Beaumont churchyard, which the wall reaches, seems to mark the site of some building which stood here apart from the wall itself; and it is surmised of greater magnitude than a mile castle. A little west of Monk Hill, the vallum crosses the turnpike road, travelling on the north side of it to Burgh on the Sands, where there are traces of another station, within which are the church and the churchyard, the latter having yielded to the sexton’s spade numerous fragments of urns, lachrymatories, and a few inscribed stones, but none of them affording any reference to the cohort by which the station was garrisoned. The church is built so as to adapt it to the purpose of refuge and defence in border strife. The walls of the tower are seven feet thick, the only entrance being from the interior of the church, and that is secured by a massive iron door. The basement of the tower contains a vaulted chamber, lighted by three narrow slits in the wall. A spiral stair of stone leads to two upper chambers. In case of need the cattle might be driven into the basement or the body of the church itself, and the upper chambers have afforded a strong refuge to the fugitive inhabitants of the place. Many Roman stones appear in the masonry of the church. Near to Burgh is the site of the castle of Sir Hugh de Morville, one of the murderers of Thomas of Canterbury. The field adjoining bears the significant cognomen of “Hangman Tree,” and a neighbouring inclosure is distinguished by the no less suggestive name of “Spill Blood Holm.”

It was at Burgh on the Sands that Edward the First—“the hammer of the Scottish nation,”—was checked in his northern campaign, with only the Solway between him and the objects of his