Monday 7 November 2016

Antonine Wall

Well, the nights are drawing in and the days are starting late, autumn seems to be swiftly passing into winter - complete with a snow warning in place over the next two days (which hopefully will come to nothing). 

We decided that we wanted to fit in a few 'bumper' walks for Missy as (thankfully) she dislikes miserable weather just as much as I do. I had been looking about on the Scottish Heritage website and spotted the Antonine wall. Its the less famous cousin to Hadrian's, and is perhaps less a wall and more a very deep trench and turf mound.

The "Wall"
Despite the low impact visual of the area, there was plenty of information about the fort stationed there and its history. We were at the Falkirk side of the wall (at 37 miles, there was never any thought of trying to walk it all) where the Rough Castle Fort used to be. Interestingly, it was manned by the Nervii, a Belgic tribe who were conquered by the Romans and held in high regard - we had a good giggle at the Asterix cartoon that Historic Scotland used for describing them!


As an aside, to access this part of the wall, you park at the Falkirk Wheel and then walk over to it. I plan on revisiting the wheel in the warmer weather (after 3 hours wandering all around the Fort and the wall, even Missy was ready to call it a day), so will do a more in depth post later, but it certainly looks like a good day out for the whole family! Perhaps an Easter doggy play date...

I wonder if the Romans had wellies...
  

1 comment:

  1. They must have had something like wellies - unless it was the miserable British weather that made them retreat!

    ReplyDelete