The Romans in Northern England

Hadrian’s Wall is among the most famous monuments in the vast Roman Empire. It is particular testimony to the engineering skill, organisation and sheer dogged determination of the Roman army. Yet the Wall is only a small part of a far greater range of archaeological remains of Roman Britain’s provincial army. This garrison of over 50,000 men, from lands as far distant and diverse as North Africa, Romania and Syria, comprised one eighth of the entire armed strength of Rome, all crowded onto this small island. Primarily a military region at the edge of the empire, northern England was a complex of roads and defences and everywhere there is evidence of the trail they blazed during those four centuries when the greater part of Britain became a province of the mighty Roman Empire.