long and deadly hatred, and in the words of Lord Hailes, “in sight of the country which he had devoted to destruction.” His last orders, Froissart tells us, were that the flesh should be boiled from his bones, and that these, encased in leather, were to be borne in the career of vengeance which engaged his last meditations, and which he bound his son and successor, by oath, to prosecute.[1] A monument, of modern date, marks the spot where the “ruthless king” yielded up his stern and resolute spirit. Between Burgh and Dykesfield, the works are perceived only by the faintest traces of the wall—not one stone remains upon another above ground. The ploughman only in driving his furrow succeeds in revealing the buried mystery; but even in instances where the wall has been fairly uprooted, Dr. Bruce, like a keen hunter, takes the lead and guides us onward by what he pithily names the “Trail of the Wall,” and which consists of small fragments of stone by which the ground is thickly strewn.
On the way between Burgh and Dykesfield, an eminence called Watch Hill, was found when the contiguous land was drained, to be so full of stones that it was not considered necessary to carry the trenches over it. These stones are most likely the remains of a watch tower which gave name to the site. At Dykesfield, probably so named from the works, a small altar was found, and where the wall descends towards Burgh Marsh, quantities of stone, together with ashes and coal appear, and from these indications, together with some difference between this tract and the surrounding soil, it is surmised that here had been a small station. From Dykesfield even the “trail” is lost. Here the vallum ends, and for the further course of the wall, the ploughman is our only guide. By his testimony it would appear that the wall has been carried by the southern margin of the marsh, which fills up the space between Dykesfield and the Solway, making a wide sweep to Drumburgh, where tokens of a small camp are evident; and this, if Watch Cross be thrown out, would make the sixteenth station upon the line of the wall, and thus correspond with the Axolodunum of the Notitia, which was garrisoned by the first cohort of the Spaniards. The ramparts and ditch of this station are both well defined. To the south of the ramparts is a circular well, lined with Roman masonry, which is still in use. Near to the station a fine example of the fortified manor house is found to be built of Roman stones. It has undergone extensive modifications about the time of Henry the Eighth. Between Port Carlisle and Bowness, some considerable portions of the wall were remaining in Brand’s time. One portion he found to be about eight feet high. Hodgson, speaking of a fragment visible quite recently, says:
“It is six feet high, its rugged and weathered core, still hard as a rock, is thickly bearded with sloe thorn and hazel, and mantled below with ivy and honeysuckle.”
But though thus adorned by nature, and interesting as a final vestige of the mighty wall, neither the interest belonging to it, nor its intrinsic strength have availed to rescue it from the hand of wilful and uncalled-for destruction.
Bowness may be the site of the Tunnocelum, or the Gabrosentum of the Notitia, according as Watch Cross or Drumburgh be taken for the sixteenth station on the line of wall. Only very slight traces of the ramparts of the station can with difficulty be discerned near the church. The neighbourhood does not produce stone, and the wall and station, as in other instances, have furnished material for the construction of the church and the greater part of the town.
Here we took our leave of the wall, as I do of the reader, if indeed I have found one to accompany me throughout this itinerary. But in the trust that I may have so far succeeded, I venture to advise him, instead of wasting a summer month at Ramsgate or Brighthelmstone, to take a berth in one of the General Steam Navigation Company’s fine vessels for the Tyne; let him put this slight record of a wall-pilgrimage in his pocket, to serve as a portable guide from station to station, and see for himself much that, writing within a limited space, I could but touch upon. In so doing, I venture to promise him, if he be a good pedestrian, a walk of unusual interest, enhanced by the observation of fine and varied scenery; and I undertake to say he will find matter for amusement, and even instruction, in the manners and dialect of the people with whom he will make acquaintance as he jogs on his way, or when he takes his rest, Good fare, I promise him. When wending through the wild and unfrequented parts of his journey, he will not fail to find matter for reflection, while he bethinks him of the powerful material genius of the people by whom these regions were once thickly populated, and he will be ready to say, with Scott, in the words which he puts into the mouth of his hero in “Guy Mannering,” “What a people! whose labours, even at this extremity of their empire, comprehended such space, and were executed upon a scale of such grandeur. In future ages, when the science of war shall have changed, how few traces will exist of the labours of Vauban or Coehorn, while this wonderful people’s remains will even then continue to interest and astonish posterity! Their fortifications, their aqueducts, their theatres, their fountains, all their public works, bear the grave, solid, and majestic character of their language, while our modern labours, like our modern tongues, seem but constructed out of their fragments.”
RAMPARTED WARSHIPS AND SMOOTH BORE GUNS.
The “Times” tells us of the great success of Mr. Jones’s angulated target. This system of ship defence was propounded in Once a Week before Mr. Jones laid it before the Admiralty, and was in the hands of the Editor before the date of Mr. Jones’s patent. Well, there is now verified by actual experiment what most people must have known before—that a shot will glance from an inclined surface, where it would pierce through a vertical surface, or if it does not glance, there will
- ↑ This vindictive order was not complied with, for, in 1744, the tomb of Edward I was opened, and the body discovered in all the pomp of buried majesty.
