Hadrian's Wall Trip, June 2006, Peter Corless' Journal
In June of 2006, more than two years ago, Bob Garbisch asked us to write reports of our experiences. A soldier‘s journal, verbatim, has often been the best historical source for information of what life was like in ancient history. Though I kept my journal, I did not publish it until today.
Let this serve as a history lesson of what Legio X was doing on Hadrian’s Wall two years ago. Note that my journal remains incomplete. It is merely a snapshot. A fragmentary history much as one might have found from ancient Roman or Medieval texts.
—Peter Corless.
Mountain View, California
15 October 2008
19 June — Dusk at Arbeia
Today I left Huntingdonshire and the modern world behind. Yesterday I had the privilege of pouring a bronze sword. Today, I dressed in my Roman reenactment gear. It’s lights out.
More tomorrow.
20 June — Arbeia at Dawn
It is just after dawn. My bladder acted as a natural alarm clock. I was nearly all dressed as I slept: tunic, pants, my Pannonian-style cap, and cloak which doubles as a blanket. There is a second blanket here in the barracks, but I had used it to bolster my pillow instead.
Yet the morning is frigid here, so I'm now neatly tucked in under the cloak around my shoulders and the blanket over my feet.
Near dawn the shadows are quite long. One can more readily sense the alignment of the Arbeia camp with the rising sun.
Looking about my room in the barracks, the wall is creacked and the plaster is already coming down. It needs a fresh plastering and painting. There's a bit of water stain on the ceiling where it leaks, but not bad. The worst crack in the wall is above the fireplace.
One can truly appreciate the invention of socks in the morning. It is cold outside and the air has a sting to it. Bt the socks make the day quite bearable.
Tre of us are in the barracks Myself and a married couple. He’s sawing away in his sleep now and then. She is a Latin-educated woman with roots in Idaho, but now lives in San Diego, CA.
Let me backtrack here and speak about how yesterday was perfectly timed. I got out of the cab, dragged my bags into the Arbeia Museum, and Bob Garbisch appeared out of nowhere behind me. It was perfect timing, and I took it as a good sign.
Yet the rest of the day’s timing and events were a bit off. For instance, I had problems using 220V power in the UK. Though I have adapter plugs aplenty, for the past week in Britain I have been without power for my Macintosh. So I was unable to confirm with Nigel when precisely to meet.
In a way I was at peace with it. The loss of my power meant I’d be without both my computer as well as at a loss to recharge my video camera and my batteries for my still camera. his means I have been using them exceedingly sparingly. I wish I had more liberal use of them, but at the same time it means I have to focus on being here now. Soaking it in with my own senses. Trusting in Nature rather than in Man’s creations.
So, again, coming to Arbeia, South Shields, was a brilliant example of dead reckoning and good timing.
The trip up from Huntingdon included giving a lift to a hitchhiker near Doncaster up to Newcastle. He was from MacDuff in Scotland, on the North Sea coast facing due north beyond Aberdeen. He had a fair way to go before he saw home. He was the last to make a call on the Mobile Phone I had rented. In a way it made it all worthwhile. He was a fisherman by trade. A strapping fair-haired Scotsman. But it was good to hear him call his mum and tell her he was running a bit behind in his plans to get to Aberdeen.
I dropped the rental car off at the airport. Their computer system was down as well. I felt a bit better to know I was not the only person experiencing technical difficulties.
The fellow at the Eurocar counter was the one who suggested I take the train through Newcastle. I was pleasantly surprised at the efficiency and scale of their system. Four cards. Lots of stops. Lines that run north and south of the Tyne serving quite a fair bit of square kilometers of neighborhoods.
When I got off at the South Shields elevated station, I could see the walkers-only marketplace behind me. Yet to the other side was the bus stops, and after going own the elevator was the place to catch a cab. An old woman before me zigged and I caught her heel in my rolling luggage. I had the two pieces and it was difficult to control them both. I had my laptop bag, and my silver Adidas bag and the Apple bag on my back and the two rolling pieces. I had barely avoided a lit cigarette on the sidewalk and I rounded the corner and she swerved in ahead of me. Yet she turned around and frowned and told me to watch where I was going. I apologized but she was all huffy. It was quite a hen-like behavior. Buck-buck!
I piled into a cab and rode it over to South Shields. The cabby wondered if this was the place, so I ducked into the museum and confirmed that it was. Yes indeed! So I hefted my luggage out of the boot and dragged it on up. That's when Bob showed up with Nigel.
After a brief discussion, it was agreed for me to stay behind at the fort while they went back to the train station to fetch more arriving reenactors.
Ah! There we go. My two neighbors are at last up. She just headed off to hit the latrines. He burped. Gulls outside are calling and sweeping back and forth overhead. Meanwhile, let’s return to the flashback.
(6:30) I waited at the old Roman ruins. They had a nice little museum. I was quite impressed by the lock they have on display. The Romans had a number of mechanical locks.
Nothing like what they produced would be recreated or improved upon for centuries, I am sure. I was also struck by how there was a baby’s skeleton buried underneath the fort. Apparentyl only small children were allowed to be buried under buildings. Though other graves found on the Arbeia site were for adults. One Victor of North Africa, and a woman of the Catuvelauni tribe who married a fellow fluent in Aramaic.
It made me mindful of the Grail legends in that way. A Middle Easterner marrying a Brit.
The reconstructed gate tower is fairly well-done. I enjoyed cranking the handles for the audio tour, but it looked geeky as heck.
Remember to write about the “Queen of Scandanavia.” But right now, Bob just came by for morning muster and to check to see if we were up. Everyone’s getting up, so it’s time to put away the noutes and get ready for the day.
I was assigned the role of scout and cook this morning. I have the map of the wall as well as the directions of our hostel tonight in Heddon-on-the-Wall.
Our equiment was toe be rented and delivered to us but no one call to confirm when.
(1:00 pm) We got to St. Anthony’s, and the Walker Riverside Park. There was a bit of confusion about whether this was the right place or not. We double-checked with a local Environmental Protection fellow.
At Wallsend there were the usual low rocks and gift shop. I was tempted to buy books, but then we’d have to pack them for the return trip.
The clouds were turnin greyer and the wind was picking up. There was still a patch of blue south of the river but it looked like the weather will be turning worse.
We had reached the Millennium Bridge by our second break. The sun is out now though the skies are mostly cloudy. The wind was blowing so strong it knocked off construction scaffolding high above us to the north of the river. There’s some shelter down low near the river. My heels have had the worst of it so far. The Centurion allowed me to pull up the socks after we ran into a fellow who just walked the Wall in the opposite direction.
I recall seeing a television show on the Millennium Bridge. Newcastle definitely looks quite spiffy compared to when I came here in 1994.
Day 3, 22 June 7:30 AM
Yes, days have passed without a journal entry. Yesterday and the day before were rather packed with a lot of walking, and also a lot of exhausted resting.
My heels blistered up by the end of the first day. The walking on concrete combined with the abrasion of the seam of the socks did a terrible number on my heels.
The trip after the Bridges area through Newcastle was rather harsh. There was no real sites to see and pounding asphalt pavment is never fun. We walked past a wharf where we were supposed to meet Nigel but he was not nearby. So we rested in a small square by the river beside the Environmental Agency building. A man on a smoke break came by to ask us questions, and then a woman named Chivon.
Robert went inside to give Nigel a call. Eventually he came walking up the river. He had parked somewhere up on a terrace above, and we all had to climb up steps to reach the van.
We then had a merciful ride along the A695 past construction. Nigel’s GPS was not working so I had to guide him by my maps. We almost ended up crossing the river to Blaydon, but after taking the roundabout all the way around we ended up correctly on the A6085.
We had successfully gotten off the OS 316’s front page and were now on the back side of the map. The trip by van took us past Denton Dene and we deposited outselves outside the Newburn Leisure Center. It was the Jacobite Battle of Newburn when the Scots and English fought (Charles I). There was a 1640 battlefield site which is now the Tyne Riverside County Park.
The sky was grey and the wind was blustering lightly. We ate our food and began our more rural march heading west to a bicycle/equestrian path. We ducked behind the main road going down a path called Blayney Row.
A few of the locals walking their dogs joined with us marching for a short ways. The dogs were curious who we were. I remember a car under a rather small shed. I thought it would be challenging to stand up under that vaulted roof. It looked rather temporary but it certainly served to keep the elements off the vehicle. There was another dog that sat in a back yard and watched us as we filed past.
The trail beyond was rather pleasant. The rise to the north runs up one hundred meters from the Tyne Valley to the line of the Wall.
[Margin notes: Jacobite 1640’s Radcliffe’s Dilton Castle]
I knew the march up the hill would be tough and I warned people we’d have a rough go of it.
We weren’t actually on the Hadrian’s Wall path. We were on a bicycle/horse path running a bit north of it. It was a straighter run, and not as exposed to the breeze up the river valley. We eventually came to the golf course to the north of the path.
We had a short break there to rest up before the ascent. The break was ended as we saw a pair of golfers getting ready to tee off.
The goal was to meet Nigel at the Close House. Walking up the path we came across horses in a paddock. One came over and Bob went over to it, and it wandered away. It was a beautiful creature off to the right of the path.
We turned left and took the ridge line up a road to Close House. We got to the back of Close House but no one went around to the front. Had we done so, we might have met Nigel.
Instead, we briefly waited and then headed up the hill on towards Heddon-on-the-Wall.
Ironically, as Bob and I had gone up the hill we had spoken about him falling back and coaching the laggards on to keep up with the rest. Yet once we were making the last bits up the hill Bob went on ahead. I stopped and waited for Joe. We had a good rest waiting for Romani and Jeff.
Then we all marched up the rest of the way. However, our Centurion was nowhere to be seen. There had been a turn-off to the left he had missed. It takes you to the west of town and dumps you straight into Houghton. Take a sharp left and walk up the lane (B6528), and you’ll soon come to Houghton North Farm.
We arrived! Paula, the proprietess, is a jovial, soft, lyrically-speakng woman.
Let this serve as a history lesson of what Legio X was doing on Hadrian’s Wall two years ago. Note that my journal remains incomplete. It is merely a snapshot. A fragmentary history much as one might have found from ancient Roman or Medieval texts.
—Peter Corless.
Mountain View, California
15 October 2008
19 June — Dusk at Arbeia
Today I left Huntingdonshire and the modern world behind. Yesterday I had the privilege of pouring a bronze sword. Today, I dressed in my Roman reenactment gear. It’s lights out.
More tomorrow.
20 June — Arbeia at Dawn
It is just after dawn. My bladder acted as a natural alarm clock. I was nearly all dressed as I slept: tunic, pants, my Pannonian-style cap, and cloak which doubles as a blanket. There is a second blanket here in the barracks, but I had used it to bolster my pillow instead.
Yet the morning is frigid here, so I'm now neatly tucked in under the cloak around my shoulders and the blanket over my feet.
Near dawn the shadows are quite long. One can more readily sense the alignment of the Arbeia camp with the rising sun.
Looking about my room in the barracks, the wall is creacked and the plaster is already coming down. It needs a fresh plastering and painting. There's a bit of water stain on the ceiling where it leaks, but not bad. The worst crack in the wall is above the fireplace.
One can truly appreciate the invention of socks in the morning. It is cold outside and the air has a sting to it. Bt the socks make the day quite bearable.
Tre of us are in the barracks Myself and a married couple. He’s sawing away in his sleep now and then. She is a Latin-educated woman with roots in Idaho, but now lives in San Diego, CA.
Let me backtrack here and speak about how yesterday was perfectly timed. I got out of the cab, dragged my bags into the Arbeia Museum, and Bob Garbisch appeared out of nowhere behind me. It was perfect timing, and I took it as a good sign.
Yet the rest of the day’s timing and events were a bit off. For instance, I had problems using 220V power in the UK. Though I have adapter plugs aplenty, for the past week in Britain I have been without power for my Macintosh. So I was unable to confirm with Nigel when precisely to meet.
In a way I was at peace with it. The loss of my power meant I’d be without both my computer as well as at a loss to recharge my video camera and my batteries for my still camera. his means I have been using them exceedingly sparingly. I wish I had more liberal use of them, but at the same time it means I have to focus on being here now. Soaking it in with my own senses. Trusting in Nature rather than in Man’s creations.
So, again, coming to Arbeia, South Shields, was a brilliant example of dead reckoning and good timing.
The trip up from Huntingdon included giving a lift to a hitchhiker near Doncaster up to Newcastle. He was from MacDuff in Scotland, on the North Sea coast facing due north beyond Aberdeen. He had a fair way to go before he saw home. He was the last to make a call on the Mobile Phone I had rented. In a way it made it all worthwhile. He was a fisherman by trade. A strapping fair-haired Scotsman. But it was good to hear him call his mum and tell her he was running a bit behind in his plans to get to Aberdeen.
I dropped the rental car off at the airport. Their computer system was down as well. I felt a bit better to know I was not the only person experiencing technical difficulties.
The fellow at the Eurocar counter was the one who suggested I take the train through Newcastle. I was pleasantly surprised at the efficiency and scale of their system. Four cards. Lots of stops. Lines that run north and south of the Tyne serving quite a fair bit of square kilometers of neighborhoods.
When I got off at the South Shields elevated station, I could see the walkers-only marketplace behind me. Yet to the other side was the bus stops, and after going own the elevator was the place to catch a cab. An old woman before me zigged and I caught her heel in my rolling luggage. I had the two pieces and it was difficult to control them both. I had my laptop bag, and my silver Adidas bag and the Apple bag on my back and the two rolling pieces. I had barely avoided a lit cigarette on the sidewalk and I rounded the corner and she swerved in ahead of me. Yet she turned around and frowned and told me to watch where I was going. I apologized but she was all huffy. It was quite a hen-like behavior. Buck-buck!
I piled into a cab and rode it over to South Shields. The cabby wondered if this was the place, so I ducked into the museum and confirmed that it was. Yes indeed! So I hefted my luggage out of the boot and dragged it on up. That's when Bob showed up with Nigel.
After a brief discussion, it was agreed for me to stay behind at the fort while they went back to the train station to fetch more arriving reenactors.
Ah! There we go. My two neighbors are at last up. She just headed off to hit the latrines. He burped. Gulls outside are calling and sweeping back and forth overhead. Meanwhile, let’s return to the flashback.
(6:30) I waited at the old Roman ruins. They had a nice little museum. I was quite impressed by the lock they have on display. The Romans had a number of mechanical locks.
Nothing like what they produced would be recreated or improved upon for centuries, I am sure. I was also struck by how there was a baby’s skeleton buried underneath the fort. Apparentyl only small children were allowed to be buried under buildings. Though other graves found on the Arbeia site were for adults. One Victor of North Africa, and a woman of the Catuvelauni tribe who married a fellow fluent in Aramaic.
It made me mindful of the Grail legends in that way. A Middle Easterner marrying a Brit.
The reconstructed gate tower is fairly well-done. I enjoyed cranking the handles for the audio tour, but it looked geeky as heck.
Remember to write about the “Queen of Scandanavia.” But right now, Bob just came by for morning muster and to check to see if we were up. Everyone’s getting up, so it’s time to put away the noutes and get ready for the day.
I was assigned the role of scout and cook this morning. I have the map of the wall as well as the directions of our hostel tonight in Heddon-on-the-Wall.
Our equiment was toe be rented and delivered to us but no one call to confirm when.
(1:00 pm) We got to St. Anthony’s, and the Walker Riverside Park. There was a bit of confusion about whether this was the right place or not. We double-checked with a local Environmental Protection fellow.
At Wallsend there were the usual low rocks and gift shop. I was tempted to buy books, but then we’d have to pack them for the return trip.
The clouds were turnin greyer and the wind was picking up. There was still a patch of blue south of the river but it looked like the weather will be turning worse.
Marcus decided to go on to a 3 mile mark
We had reached the Millennium Bridge by our second break. The sun is out now though the skies are mostly cloudy. The wind was blowing so strong it knocked off construction scaffolding high above us to the north of the river. There’s some shelter down low near the river. My heels have had the worst of it so far. The Centurion allowed me to pull up the socks after we ran into a fellow who just walked the Wall in the opposite direction.
I recall seeing a television show on the Millennium Bridge. Newcastle definitely looks quite spiffy compared to when I came here in 1994.
Day 3, 22 June 7:30 AM
Yes, days have passed without a journal entry. Yesterday and the day before were rather packed with a lot of walking, and also a lot of exhausted resting.
My heels blistered up by the end of the first day. The walking on concrete combined with the abrasion of the seam of the socks did a terrible number on my heels.
The trip after the Bridges area through Newcastle was rather harsh. There was no real sites to see and pounding asphalt pavment is never fun. We walked past a wharf where we were supposed to meet Nigel but he was not nearby. So we rested in a small square by the river beside the Environmental Agency building. A man on a smoke break came by to ask us questions, and then a woman named Chivon.
Robert went inside to give Nigel a call. Eventually he came walking up the river. He had parked somewhere up on a terrace above, and we all had to climb up steps to reach the van.
We then had a merciful ride along the A695 past construction. Nigel’s GPS was not working so I had to guide him by my maps. We almost ended up crossing the river to Blaydon, but after taking the roundabout all the way around we ended up correctly on the A6085.
We had successfully gotten off the OS 316’s front page and were now on the back side of the map. The trip by van took us past Denton Dene and we deposited outselves outside the Newburn Leisure Center. It was the Jacobite Battle of Newburn when the Scots and English fought (Charles I). There was a 1640 battlefield site which is now the Tyne Riverside County Park.
The sky was grey and the wind was blustering lightly. We ate our food and began our more rural march heading west to a bicycle/equestrian path. We ducked behind the main road going down a path called Blayney Row.
A few of the locals walking their dogs joined with us marching for a short ways. The dogs were curious who we were. I remember a car under a rather small shed. I thought it would be challenging to stand up under that vaulted roof. It looked rather temporary but it certainly served to keep the elements off the vehicle. There was another dog that sat in a back yard and watched us as we filed past.
The trail beyond was rather pleasant. The rise to the north runs up one hundred meters from the Tyne Valley to the line of the Wall.
[Margin notes: Jacobite 1640’s Radcliffe’s Dilton Castle]
I knew the march up the hill would be tough and I warned people we’d have a rough go of it.
We weren’t actually on the Hadrian’s Wall path. We were on a bicycle/horse path running a bit north of it. It was a straighter run, and not as exposed to the breeze up the river valley. We eventually came to the golf course to the north of the path.
We had a short break there to rest up before the ascent. The break was ended as we saw a pair of golfers getting ready to tee off.
The goal was to meet Nigel at the Close House. Walking up the path we came across horses in a paddock. One came over and Bob went over to it, and it wandered away. It was a beautiful creature off to the right of the path.
We turned left and took the ridge line up a road to Close House. We got to the back of Close House but no one went around to the front. Had we done so, we might have met Nigel.
Instead, we briefly waited and then headed up the hill on towards Heddon-on-the-Wall.
Ironically, as Bob and I had gone up the hill we had spoken about him falling back and coaching the laggards on to keep up with the rest. Yet once we were making the last bits up the hill Bob went on ahead. I stopped and waited for Joe. We had a good rest waiting for Romani and Jeff.
Then we all marched up the rest of the way. However, our Centurion was nowhere to be seen. There had been a turn-off to the left he had missed. It takes you to the west of town and dumps you straight into Houghton. Take a sharp left and walk up the lane (B6528), and you’ll soon come to Houghton North Farm.
We arrived! Paula, the proprietess, is a jovial, soft, lyrically-speakng woman.
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