Hadrian's Wall Trip 2012--Part 1

Helloo! I don't want this blog to be too long, so I might just blog about the first day and then blog at a later date about the second day. Confusing times with all these part 1 blogs. =P

So as I mentioned in my last blog post I went on a History trip with school this week to Hadrian's Wall. It was so much fun and I really enjoyed it. The aim was to get a better understanding of the Romans in general and of why Hadrian's Wall was built. This is for the A Level course we are doing now, which I think is Edexcel, in which we do 2 coursework pieces and no exam!! YAY. I think the second question which is compulsory for everyone, (as in you don't get to choose the essay you do) is on long term significance/change across the whole period we are studying, aka Roman Britain. So we had to collect find some primary sources about Hadrian's Wall to use in that second question.

So we were there for two days, one night and we actually went to a lot of places. The first day we went straight from the journey to The Roman Army Museum. This was interesting and we went into this hilarious classroom thing in which you pressed a button and a hologram of a Roman soldier gave you a lesson. It was enjoyable, but somehow I reckon it was aimed at a slightly younger audience then an A Level class! Haha.
This museum had quite a lot of hands on stuff and would definitely be the best for kids out of the ones we visited. They had manikins of Roman soldiers and you could have a go at firing a bow and arrow etc. It was good, while we were there we just concentrated on looking at what the lives of the Roman legionaries and auxiliary soldiers were like and what equipment they had etc. One thing that has and will stick firmly in my memory is that used to carry tweezers with them to get rid of ticks!! How disgusting is that?! I have total tickophobia, =P. My dogs always get them when we go on holiday to Scotland and they just make my skin crawl, although as of yet I haven't had one. TOUCH WOOD. Oh also the museum has the standard gift shop with overpriced plastic swords, which naturally the 17 year old boys in my class found very exciting and they pretty much all bought one! =D
Here are a few pictures I took at the Roman Army Museum. >>>>>>>>>>>>>

Right then we went straight to what I thought was the most interesting historical sight, Vindolanda Fort. Which was a Roman fort and viscus or village near to Hadrian's Wall. I think it is one of the best archaeological sites for telling us about the Romans in Britain and how they lived. Which, in relation to our coursework was useful as it gave an indication about why the wall was built and if the Britons/Scots presented much of a threat to the Romans. For example at Vindolanda they have the actual ruins which you can freely walk around and then a museum with displays showing the evidence they have collected. There is so much to look at, such as shoes, armour remains, keys, jewellery etc. They also have these tablet things which I think Vindolanda is famous for and they have found loads of letters etc and you can look at what they all say with a little explanation etc. These were useful for us in particular and presented some great primary sources. For example the fact that children's shoes were found inside the fort, not just in the viscus shows that the Romans let their families live in the fort, which would suggest the area wasn't dangerous and that the threat of attack from the Scots wasn't huge. Therefore we could also infer the wall wasn't built primarily for defense, but perhaps just as a decision to seal the Roman Empire's territory. There is also a birthday party invite which archaeologists there discovered in which a Roman couple living at another fort invite the head of Vindolanda and his wife to a birthday party. This shows again that the threat was minimal as they were allowing their wives to travel freely outside of the fort to attend something as trivial as a birthday party. We had a really nice guide who showed us around and talked to us about the fort, his accent was great =P. He said they have recently found the remains of a dead girl under the floor inside the fort somewhere, and they seem to think she was a slave. It just amazes me that finds like these are still being discovered! It must be great to be able to say you found these historic things which are over 2000 years old! Anyhoo I really enjoyed Vindolanda, despite the fact it was freezing cold and raining, (But hey I live in the north, a coat is an essential item) it was my favourite Roman site we visited and I would like to go again and spend even more time looking round. I'm afraid I don't know the entry prices for these places as we paid for the trip as a whole through school.

These are some pictures I took at Vindolanda, note the beautiful British weather. 
OK so it doesn't look that bad in the pictures but it was freezing cold and windy!



Right so that was the first day. We then went back to our hostel and played Roman themed games, my team was pretty shocking but our name was ace, it has 'expelliarmus' incorporated into it. =D. I then had the worst nights sleep ever as the bed was uncomfortable and all the boys decided it would be funny to knock on our door at one in the morning and say "open the door girls" in a really creepy voice. They also scraped their nails on the door and even went all the way round the building outside and stood with their hoods up holding their swords outside the window. Funny in the morning. Not at all funny at the time. Me and my friends were bricking it. =P Oh but we got them back, my friend stole one of their clothes while he was in the shower next morning. Priceless.

On that note, I have rambled on enough already and I bid you farewell. Thanks for reading and I hope you get the chance to visit Hadrian's Wall and the area around it.
Over and Out.