United Kingdom - England - Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall, within the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Frontiers of the Roman Empire,
a historic Roman fortification in Northern England.

Sent by Emma from Staffordshire, England.

The Roman Empire, in its territorial extent, was one of the greatest empires history has known. Enclosing the Mediterranean world and surrounding areas, it was protected by a network of frontiers stretching from the Atlantic Coast in the west to the Black Sea in the east, from central Scotland in the north to the northern fringes of the Sahara Desert in the south. It was largely constructed in the 2nd century AD when the Empire reached its greatest extent. This frontier could be an artificial or natural barrier, protecting spaces or a whole military zone. Its remains encompass both visible and buried archaeology on, behind and beyond the frontier.

The property consists of three sections of the frontier: Hadrian’s Wall, the Upper German- Raetian Limes and the Antonine Wall, located in the northwestern part of the Empire, constituting the artificial boundaries of the former Roman provinces Britannia, Germania Superior and Raetia: Running 130 km from the mouth of the River Tyne in the east to the Solway Firth, Hadrian’s Wall was built on the orders of the Emperor Hadrian in AD 122 as a continuous linear barrier at the then northernmost limits of the Roman province of Britannia. The frontier extended a further 36km down the Solway coast as a series of intervisible military installations. It constituted the main element in a controlled military zone across northern Britain. The Wall was supplemented by the ditch and banks of the vallum, supporting forts, marching camps and other features in a wide area to the north and south, linked by an extensive road network. It illustrates an ambitious and coherent system of defensive constructions perfected by engineers over the course of several generations and is outstanding for its construction in dressed stone and its excellent use of the spectacular upland terrain through which it passed (read more).