THE

CRITICAL REVIEW.

For the Month of August, 1778.

A View of Northumberland with an Excurfion to the Abbey of Mailrofs in Scotland. By W. Hutchinfon. 410. $55. in boards. Johnson.

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FTER giving a fummary detail of the hiftory of Northumberland, the author of the prefent volume proceeds to a defcription of this county, which he enters at the fouthweft point, where it joins the county of Cumberland, on the Maiden Way, a military Roman road.

The Maiden Way, he observes, extended from a small fort, called Maiden Caftle, on Stainmore, by Kirby Thore, in Weftmoreland, to Caer Voran, in Northumberland, and was guarded by a chain of stations. One of those was the Alione of Antoninus, now called Whitley Castle, fituated on the Gilderdale, a rivulet which forms the boundary of the fouthweft part of Northumberland. This place is defcribed as lying on an irregular defcent, inclining to the east, and forming an oblong fquare, with obtufe angles. It measures a hundred and forty paces from east to west, and a hundred and ten from north to fouth. The ground falls abruptly from the eastern fide of this station; but on the weft it is overlooked by hills, whence it might eafily have been attacked.

From Whitley Caftle the traveller leads us by Knaresdale and Lambley, to Featherston Castle, and Bellifter Castle, both which, with the adjacent country, he faithfully describes.

The Roman ftation at Caer Voran was fituated on a declivity, which defcends abruptly towards the fouth-west, about a hundred yards diftant from the Picts wall. It is of a square figure, with obtufe angles, each fide measuring a hundred and twenty paces. About feven paces from the fouthern fide, VOL. XLVI. August, 1778.

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is the prætorium, ftill very diftinguishable, and commanding an extensive profpe&t. The gentleman who farms the ground, we are told, is at prefent raifing the foundations of the pra torium; and it is expected that he will difcover fome valuable antiquities. This ftation is fuppofed to be the ancient Magna, where, according to the Notitia, the Cohors Secunda Dalmatarum was quartered. The ramparts are very conspicuous, and the whole ditch remains clearly difcernible. The military road, called the Maiden Way, paffes through this place; and here are many fragments of infcriptions, effigies, and other Roman antiquities.

The most remarkable Roman antiquity in Northumberland is the Picts wall, which was built as a barrier against the incurfions of the northern inhabitants of the inland, and reached from the Solway Frith to the mouth of the Tyne. It was calied by the Romans Vallum Barbaricum, Pretentatura, and Clauf ra. Of this kind of fortification three were erected fucceffively, at diftant periods. The first vallum, or that of Hadrian, was conftru&ted of earth, about the year 123 of the Chriftian era. The next was that of Severus, bearing date about the year 210, and fuppofed by feveral antiquaries to have been of mafonry. The third and laft vallum is generally imagined to have been the work of the Britons, affifted by the Romans, under the third confulate of Etius, about the year 444.

The following extract contains a general defcription of those fortifications, as they have been delineated by Mr. Horley, and Mr. Warburton, intermixed with the author's own obfervations.

It is evident there have been three different prætenturæ erected here at different times, and by different perfons: the first of which was a series of ftations or forts, placed quite cross the country; and this, it is prefumed, was done chiefly by Julius Agricola, and is the most ancient of the three. Next to this was erected Hadrian's valium, and its appurtenances; after which the aforefaid flations might probably go by the name of fationes per liniam valli. The last and ftrongest fence of all was (as moft learned antiquaries agree) built by Severus, which is a flone wall, that lays north of the rampiers of earth.

• Hadrian's vallum was the fecond prætentatura, and seems rather to have given the former the name of ftations per liniam valli, than the wall of Severus. What Bede fays of the wall's being rebuilt afterwards by the Romans, is applicable to this:

that it is carried on from town to town much in a trait line." What belongs to this work, is the vallum on the brink of the ditch, having the ditch on the north, another vallum fouthward, distant from the former about fixteen feet, and a large

vallum on the north of the ditch. The fouth vallum has either been made for an inner defence, in cafe the enemy might beat them from any part of the principal vallum, or to protect the foldiers against a fudden attack from the provincial Bri tons. Thefe four works keep all the way a conftant regular parallelifm one to another. The third prætentatura was Severus's ftone wall. We have the exprefs teftimony of fome ancient writers, concerning this emperor's building a wall crofs, our ifland; which will be explained hereafter. To this work be longs a paved military way, which has attended the wall on the fouth fide, though it be not always parallel to it. It fometimes coincides with Hadrian's north vallum; but whenever this is too diftant, or perhaps has been too ruinous, or in any other refpect inconvenient, the new military way (which is a reparation of the old Roman road made by order of government) always accompanies Severus's wall, and comes up near to every caftellum upon it; and therefore it is to be prefumed the Roman military road has been a work cotemporary with the wall, and directly for its fervice. It is apprehended there has been alfo a leffer military way near to the wall, for the convenience of small par ties paffing from turret to turret. There is alfo belonging to this work, a large ditch on the north fide of the wall; but there are no remains, to prove that there was any breaftwork or agger of earth on its northern brink. Upon this wall certain caftles and turrets have been regularly placed, and at proper diftances one from another; and in order to form a general idea of the wall, and its original ftate, it will be neceffary to have fome knowledge of thefe,

All these castles, except one near Harlow Hill, (which may have been built before the wall) are 66 feet fquare, the wall itfelf falling in with and forming the north fide of them. The intervals between thefe caftles are not always exactly the fame, but excepting two or three at the east end of the wall, always lefs than a mile, that is, from fix furlongs and a half to feven. They are conftantly called caftles, or caftle-fteads by the country people, (which feems to make it probable that the Latin word has been caftellum) and by the form and ufe of them, seem to have been a fmaller fort of a caftle for a fmall garrifon. So likewife they call the caftra ftativa, or æftiva, ufually chefters, from the Latin and this is a ufual criterion whereby to difcover a Roman encampment or ftation. Thefe caftella feem to have ftood clofeft, where the ftations are wideft, and are by fome modern authors called mile caftles, or milliary caftella. In the last edition of Camden, they are, through mistake, faid to be of a very different shape and fize. Perhaps the remaining ruins of two or three caitle-fteads, that do not join the walls, and of one that does, which are all plainly of another fort, have occafioned this error. It is not improbable, that there may also have been fame exploratory caftles belonging to Hadrian's work, though there be little appearance of such at prefent, un

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lefs the fmall remains at Chapel Houfes, near Newburn, and, those near Heddon on the Wall, which are castle-steads, be of this fort. But be that as it will, (in relation to Hadrian's valJum) above two-thirds of these caftella are yet very visible upon the wall of Severus, and for a long way together, especially about the middle of the wall, they have their diftin&t vestiges remaining without interruption.'

The fmall turrets (in Latin, turres) have been more generally and entirely ruined than the caftella; fo that it is hard to find three of them any where together with certainty. The distance between two, where it was thought fureft, was meafured, and found to be near 14 chains, or 308 yards. It therefore feems most probable, that there have been four of these between every two caftella, at equal distances from the caftella and one another; for thus five intervals will be found between every two caftella, each confifting of 14 chains; which five intervals will just amount to 7 furlongs, the ufual or mean diftance between the caftella. And this fcheme answers with a good deal of exactness to the fituation of all the turrets, that have yet been difcovered. These exploratory turrets, or watch-towers, feem to have been only about four yards fquare at the bottom; and by placing centinels at each of thefe, who must have been within call of one another, the communication quite along the wall might be kept up, without having recourfe to the fiction of a founding trumpet, or pipes laid under ground, from one end of the wall to the other, though this feems to be credited by Mr. Echard and others.

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There have also been feveral larger forts or ftations upon the wall, or near it.

Whilft I am giving a general view of the ancient state of the wall, it may not be improper to obferve, that there have been 18 of these flations upon it, with 17 intervals between them : the wall is in length 68 miles and 3 furlongs; this divided by 17, gives the mean diftance, which is very little more than 4 miles but the ftations are much clofer and thicker at each end, and in the middle, than in the, intermediate fpaces, between the middle and the extremities: which is not difagreeable to reafon, or the ufual rules of fortification. Befides, if, according to the common tradition, the inroads of the enemy were in, or near the middle, it was neceflary to make it ftronger, and guard it more; especially fince the advanced ftations were feweft, if any, where thofe upon the wall were clofeft.

This wall runs generally upon the top or ridge of the higher ground, keeping a defcent on the north or enemy's fide, and hath thereby both a greater ftrength, and better profpect; for the fake of which, it often forms an angle. In Hadrian's vallum it is different, but both in the main feem to have been carried on pretty much in a straight line, from ftation to station: there is indeed now and then a gentle turn in croffing a rivulet, or at a station, and fometimes too in paffing a height; but this

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laft happens ufually at coming within fight of a ftation, and perhaps in order to reach it. Hadrian's vallum keeps more in a ftraight line than Severus's wall, as much as the nature of the ground and other circumstances would admit. It is plain, a military way has conftantly attended Severus's wall, and no doubt was made at the fame time with it: this always keeps nigh to the wall, and never coincides with the north vallum of Hadrian, but when the two works approach one another. When they part, and go at a distance one from the other, the way leaves the vallum to accompany the ftone wall; but where the wail paffes along the brink of precipices, the way does not follow every little turn, but in these leffer windings, is like the ftring of a bow, and keeps upon the fides of the hill, in order to avoid, as much as poflible, the fudden afcent or descent in paffing from hill to hill, and yet fo as at the fame time never to be at a great distance from the wall. The rule therefore by which this way seems to have been conducted, is in general by keeping pretty close to the wall, and at the fame time going on a line from caftellum to caftellum, and fhunning the ascent of hills as much as poffible. And as the fmaller military way went from turret to turret close by the wall, fo this greater way attended the caftella, falling in with Hadrian's north vallum (which Mr. Warburton conceives was the old military way) when that did not take too much out of the road, or was not too ruinous to be made ufe of. The old military way, as Mr. Warburton calls it, has been the best and most direct paffage from station to station, and when the line of the stations fetched a compafs, another diftinct military way, and fhorter, was laid; not from one ftation to the next, but between two stations more remote.'

It appears to be a mistake to fuppofe Hadrian's vallum longer than Severus's wall, as Mr. Gordon feems to have done. It is certain the former has gone more in a right line than the latter, and it seems probable, that Severus's wall has at each end been carried further than Hadrian's: fo that the very exa& agreement, which Mr. Gordon fuppofes between "the actual furvey of the wall, and the account given of it by the Romans themselves," is in a great measure imaginary. For, according to Spartian, Hadrian's vallum was 80 Roman miles long; but the actual menfuration cannot ftretch Severus's wall up to 73, and Hadrian's vallum is certainly two or three miles horter, upon account of its being straighter. There had just been 81. milliary caftella upon Severus's wall, and confequently just 80 intervals between the caftella. So that if the Romans, in a general way, called every interval a mile, one with another, and Hadrian's vallum was near the fame length with Severus's, this might be looked upon as a plaufible reafon, why the historian fhould fay it was 80 miles long.

According to Bede, the wall was eight feet in breadth, and twelve feet in height (as probably there was a parapet or pas

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