The construction of Hadrian’s Wall
By P.R. Hill
PhD Dissertation, Durham University, 2003
Introduction: A number of scholars, notably Stevens and Hooley and Breeze, have examined the building of Hadrian’s Wall from the viewpoint of the order of construction and which legions were responsible for various sections. Others, such as Richmond and Child, and Bidwel, have examined the design of the Wall and its structural elements. This thesis, although impinging on their work, is concerned largely with the practical aspects of the physical construction of the Wall.
The purpose of this thesis is to examine all the processes necessary to build the Wall; it is concerned not simply with the work of putting one stone on another. The line had to be surveyed and the infrastructure and support services had to be set up; the principal relevant operations included quarrying, stone dressing, and lime burning, with the subsidiary operations of sand and water supply, scaffolding, and transport. Each is treated separately before consideration of the techniques of actually building the Wall. The digging of the Valium and the ditch is discussed, and the addition of the forts and other changes to the programme are included. Organisational aspects arising from the study, such as the hours of work and the potential labour force are grouped together in chapter 12.
The study is confined to the curtain wall and turrets, and the defences of the milecastles and forts, on Hadrian’s Stone Wall, and so far as possible all examples of Roman techniques are taken from the Wall and its immediate locality.
‘The Wall’ is regarded as the original scheme for a Broad Wall from Wallsend to the river Irthing, and the Turf Wall from the Irthing to Bowness, with a more or less continuous ditch to the north.
Click here to read this thesis from Durham University
See also An Archaeological Map of Hadrian’s Wall
