Hadrian’s Wall was built in the years AD 122-30 by order of the Emperor Hadrian.
It is a Roman frontier with 80 miles long and ran from Wallsend-in Tyne to Bowness
on the Solway Firth, of what is now northern England. It was built to prevent military
raids on Roman Britain by the ancient inhabitants of Scotland (Pictish tribes),
to improve economic stability and provide peaceful conditions in Britain.
In addition to its use as a military fortification, probably the gates through the
wall would also have served as customs posts to allow trade taxation and a significant
portion of the walls still exists. UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site in 1987,
often known simply as the Roman Wall. It is considered the most popular tourist
attraction in Northern England and the English Heritage, an important government organization describes it as “the most important monument built by the Romans in
Britain”.
The width and height of Hadrian’s Wall dependent of the construction materials,
available nearby, they measured
between 2.4-6m wide and 3.5-6m high, and some parts
of the central section of the wall still survive.
History
Hadrian’s Wall was built in AD 122 following a visit of Roman Emperor Hadrian, who
was experiencing military difficulties in Roman Britain. In this way the construction
of this impressive wall was probably also a symbol of Roman power, both in occupied
Britain and in Rome.
Hadrian's Wall, Northumberland
Frontiers in the early empire were largely based on natural features or fortified
zones with a heavy military presence. Hadrian expanded this idea, redesigning the
German border by ordering a continuous timber palisade supported by forts behind
it. Although such defences would not have held back any concerted invasion effort,
they did physically mark the edge of Roman territory and went some way to providing
a degree of control over who crossed the border and where.
Hadrian reduced Roman military presence in the territory and concentrated on building
a more solid linear fortification. Probably the construction finished within six
years, extending from east to proceeded westwards, with soldiers from all
three of the occupying Roman legions participating in the work.
The initial plan called for a ditch and wall with eighty small gated milecastle
fortlets, one placed every Roman mile, holding a few dozen troops each, and pairs
of evenly spaced intermediate turrets used for observation and signalling. Local
limestone was used in the construction. There are 81 milecastle forts along Hadrian’s
Wall, which were also built from timber and earth rather than stone, supplemented
by 160 manned turrets and 16 forts larger than the milecastles. Construction was
divided into lengths of 8 km.
After Hadrian’s death in 138, Antoninus Pius the new emperor abandoned the wall
and began building a new wall in Scotland proper, called the Antonine Wall. He was
unable to conquer the northern tribes, so when Marcus Aurelius became emperor he
reoccupied Hadrian’s Wall as the main defensive barrier in 164, so the wall remained occupied by Roman troops until their withdrawal from Britain.
Some parts of the wall still survived in the eight century for spolia from it to
find its way into the construction of Jarrow Priory. But in time the wall was abandoned
and fell into ruin and around twentieth the stone was reused in
other local buildings.