I woke up this morning (which is always a good thing) and it took me a while to work out where I was. I knew I was in bed I just wasn’t sure where the bed was geographically, eleven countries in eight weeks will do that to you. It occurred to me that this must have been how Hadrian felt while touring the Roman Empire checking up on the provinces…… “Britania? You’re telling me we’re in Britainia!  I’m sure we were in Britania last week, weren’t we going to Gaul, do we even still own Gaul? or did we lose it to Asterix?”

Publius Aelius Hadrianus (24 January 76 – 10 July 138 AD) when growing up was probably called “Pub” by his play friends. A bit later on he changed his name to Hadrian  which was probably a smart move on his part as it enabled him to become the “tough” sounding Emperor Hadrian instead of a rather “girlie” sounding Emperor Publius which no doubt would have become “Pub” for short. Hadrian was Emperor of the Roman Empire from 127 to 138 AD and he travelled most of the Roman provinces during his rule which must have taken up a lot of his time, the Roman Empire at that stage being a fair chunk of the world. All that travelling is probably the reason he had no children, or none that he wanted to own up to. Anyway as far as the modern day English are concerned Hadrian’s most important legacy is his wall.

Hadrian’s Wall ran eighty miles across the entire width of the Roman province of Britania. It was made of stone, had milecastles, turrets and forts. The idea was that the wall would keep the low life northern Brits (or Northern Barbarians) out of Roman territory and stop them from pilfering Roman stuff that the Romans had previously pilfered from the Southern Brits (or Southern Barbarians). Why the Romans didn’t just conquer the north instead of building a wall and manning it for years defies logic. In the end the Saxons, Angles and Jutes overran the Romans, but parts of the wall remain. See below, and as always click for full size images.

Lanercost Priory pictures follow, Lanercost is half ruin and still a functioning Priory and coincidentally on the way to Hadrian’s Wall.

By the way, I am pretty sure all of Hadrian’s wall still exists it’s just been re-located and re-purposed, it now keeps the numerous flocks of barbarian sheep in the Lakes area from invading the veggie gardens. I base this presumption on the following image which shows walls both sides of the road which from experience are designed to keep the sheep on the road and out of the veggie patch.

“The Struggle” a very steep and narrow road to our temporary house seemingly littered with barbarian sheep.

Barbarian Sheep. Note the evil non caring eyes.