SO WHAT'S UP WITH THIS WALL?

Crag Lough

Hadrian's Wall..... does it get much better than this? Me, my son Phil, England, history, Romans, vast countryside, castles and a little Viking madness thrown in later, so hang in there! 

Back again... me walking in England. This is my 3rd long distance walk. 
This time the distance is 84 miles, from WallsEnd in Newcastle on the east coast to Bowness on Solway on the west coast. For most of its length the path is close to what remains of Hadrian's Wall.

Though it's possible to do the entire walk in 6 stages over 6 days, we're taking longer, because we want to see the countryside and have time to stop and wander off the path. 

So who is this guy Hadrian and why is there a wall named after him and why did he even need to build one?

Handsome Dude

HADRIAN nee Publius Aelius Hadrianus was born in 76 AD and died in 138 AD.
He came to Britain in 122 AD and, according to a biography written 200 years later, ‘put many things to right and was the first to build a wall 80 miles long from sea to sea to separate the barbarians from the Romans’
So obviously the British needed someone to take control over the riff raff that was to become Scotland. The "Barbarians" were the PICTS. 


FYI a Roman mile is more than a present day mile AND somehow an extra 4 miles got added to that. A mystery. 

The Roman mile (mille passus) consisted of a thousand paces of two steps each. The ancient Romans, marching their armies through uncharted territory, would often push a carved stick in the ground after each 1000 paces. Well fed and harshly driven Roman legionnaires marching in good weather thus created longer miles. The distance was indirectly standardized by Agrippa's establishment of a standard Roman foot (Agrippa's own size 13's? ) in 29 BC,  and the definition of a pace was 5 feet. Yikes. An Imperial Roman mile thus denoted 5000 Roman feet. 

Another theory is a mile would change its measurement based on the current emperor's foot length. That had to be confusing.

Ok I'm lost and does this really matter? 

The Wall was built by the Roman infantry of 5000 men and took at least six years to complete. Not bad really. It would take around 1,500 construction workers, £400m (x$1.42) and about two-and-a-half-years to build a modern version of Hadrian's Wall
But at least the Emperor Hadrian didn’t have to worry about planning, permits, environmental hurdles or health and safety. The original plan was for a wall of stone or turf, with a guarded gate every mile and two observation towers in between, and fronted by a wide, deep ditch. Before work was completed, 14 forts were added, followed by an earthwork known as the Vallum to the south.

The chief function of the Wall was frontier control. Think Game of Thrones, which was inspired by the Wall. Winter was coming! Here the army enforced the regulations which governed access to the empire. People could only enter  at designated points and travel unarmed and under military escort to specified markets or other places. The Wall would also help to prevent raiding. It was military defense - as well as the protection and policing of the local undesirables. 

So off we go..........

Booyah!