This well-produced and characteristically thorough volume has at its heart the most detailed study of any length of the curtain of Hadrian's Wall ever undertaken. It is also the most archaeologically complex stretch yet identified, incorporating as it does the distribution system for an aqueduct. Continual collapse and rebuilding called for the incorporation of spolia from nearby structures as building material.
After an introductory chapter, eight sections provide detailed descriptions of the excavations between 1991 and 2015 on an 81.6 m stretch of curtain wall located west of the fort of Segedunum in Buddle Street, Wallsend. Chapter 10 describes other excavations, mostly rescue projects, to the north and west of the fort in Wall Mile 0. Chapter 11 describes and discusses the full-scale reconstruction of the Wall built as an exercise in experimental archaeology behind the archaeological remains at Buddle Street. There are then four chapters of artefactual and mortar analysis, and a final concluding section.
The earliest archaeological phase on the site comprises pre-Wall cultivation furrows of a type identified in previous excavations at Wallsend (N. Hodgson, The Roman Fort at Wallsend (Segedunum): Excavations in 1997–8, Newcastle upon Tyne 2003, 23–33). It is curious that the phasing structure in the report does not allocate a number to this phase. The same is true of the post-Roman phase, including the evidence for the late 18th-century colliery. Phase numbers (designated Periods) are solely allocated to the five Roman phases identified. This has potential for confusion.
The Wall crossed a shallow valley at this point, and the Period 1 building included very deep foundations with ‘long stones’ in the footings, adding ‘a new term to the vocabulary of the Wall’. The construction, including the carefully coursed core and the fact that the structure was clay-bonded, is described in great detail. Bidwell examines the possible source of stone and the reasons for the absence of mortar, and issues in the supply and transport of lime. The idea of the Narrow Wall to the east of Newcastle being an addition to the original scheme is emphatically restated. The primary construction of the Wall included provision for the passage of two channels of an aqueduct, which must have been carried over the Wall ditch in a timber channel. The aqueduct would have supplied extramural buildings, particularly the recently discovered fort bath-house. This in turn means that when the Wall was built aspects of the extra-mural plan had already been laid out.
At the end of Period 1 the Wall collapsed, due to subsidence and possibly the failure to maintain the aqueduct. The rebuild is dated to the Severan period, and is of a piece with the provision of defences to the vicus. A feature of both Periods 1 and 2 is the provision of the well-known system of ‘obstacles’ on the berm between the Wall and the Wall ditch. The Period 2 replacement of these features was also connected with the vicus defences.
Period 2 was ended by a second collapse, apparently occasioned by continuing subsidence. During the Period 3 reconstruction, probably in the second quarter of the third century, the system of obstacles was erased. A third collapse again prompted a rebuilding, this time using spolia from other structures, in particular a chamfered string course featuring a lewis hole and bar-cramp slots which was used in the remodelling of one of the original aqueduct culverts. Adjacent to the aqueduct, a space where individual arrowheads had been buried is interpreted as a sacred or votive space in the lee of the Wall.
The final collapse at the end of Period 4 included parts of five collapsed courses, which remained in situ. This revealed the reused stonework employed in the Period 3 rebuild, including a decorated cornice block and part of a monolithic stone window head, which seems to have been derived from the main west gate of the fort (abandoned in favour of the minor west gate before the fourth century).
There is some indication of a final rebuild, though no stonework of this putative phase survived. At all events, it seems that stretches of the Wall remained standing long after the end of the Roman period, into the 15th century and beyond. The evidence for post-Roman robbing, the layout of 18th-century fields and the construction of the late 18th-century colliery are described.
Chapters on finds and pottery are thorough, and there are a number of important small essays – notably the extensive discussion of the distribution of Campanian amphorae in the north and E.A. Laycock's argument that lime for mortar in the later periods was probably brought from the Housesteads/Vindolanda area. It is a particular feature of the book that finds and dating evidence are well integrated in the form of cross-referenced summaries in the body of the descriptive text.
This important and highly detailed report brings together many threads in the extensively excavated and well-published site of Wallsend and its environs. The discussion sections range across broader issues that illuminate or have been illuminated by the work at Wallsend and contribute thought-provoking sidelights on many aspects of Wall studies.
