Submitted by Sean Williams on Sun, 03/14/2010 - 16:39
I'm sitting on the 15.49 to London Euston from Carlisle. It's boiling hot, the Cumbrian countryside is disappearing behind me and my jumper smells like yesterday's paper. But I'm happy, because we've just hah a hell of a week at the Hadrian's Wall illuminations. I've seen it on the news from my hotel, but I guarantee you it was even better in the flesh: and that's what we'll be recreating in our next Ancient World in London video.
Submitted by Sean Williams on Wed, 03/10/2010 - 12:36
Hadrian's Wall snakes its way through 84 miles of barren British countryside, the frostbitten tip of the Roman empire. Yet you needn't leave your PC to get a feel for this weekend's illuminations event, which promises to be a spectacular celebration of Roman prowess.
Nicole, Sam and myself will be heading up to the wall to watch the illuminations for an Ancient World in London video about the bits of Britain even Rome dared not tinker with. We'll be visiting some of the wall's best-known sites, and speaking to experts about its glorious past.
Derry Brabbs is one of England’s finest heritage and landscape photographers. He has published more than 25 books, including collaborations with reknowned rambler Alfred Wainwright. His book England's Heritage, a project in conjunction with English Heritage, featured more than 600 photographs of sites that have shaped England's past.
He is both author and photographer of his latest book, Hadrian's Wall. The book traces the Wall from west to east, from the Solway Firth to Wallsend on Tyneside, taking in places of historical significance along the way.
Brabbs has been photographing Hadrian’s Wall since his first assignment along the Roman frontier with Wainwright in 1984. For his Hadrian's Wall project, he made countless trips over many months, battling the fickle microclimates of Cumbria and Northumberland to capture the essence of arguably Britain's most important Roman remains.
Derry Brabbs is regarded as one of England’s finest published photographers within the spheres of heritage and landscape, with over 25 books to his credit. Known for his acclaimed collaborations with James Herriot and Alfred Wainwright, he has also written and illustrated several titles celebrating England’s rich architectural and cultural legacy, including English Country Churches, Abbeys & Monasteries, English Country Pubs, Landmark, and A Year in the Life of the Welsh Marches.
He is also the author and photographer of Hadrian's Wall, in which he charts the Roman frontier from west to east, from the Solway Firth to Wallsend on Tyneside, taking in places of historical significance along the way. Brabbs has been photographing the Wall since 1984, when he first shot it for a Wainwright book.
His other books include England's Heritage, a major work published in conjunction with English Heritage and containing 600 photographs. It progresses from the monuments of prehistory to those of the industrial revolution, the cathedrals, castles, battlefields and stately homes that form such an integral part of England's unique identity.
Lights will be placed at 250m intervals along the route – that’s around 500 illuminated spots stretching from Wallsend to Bowness-on-Solway in Cumbria. The Romans built fortlets, known as milecastles, along the Wall at intervals of one Roman mile. Between each milecastle, and spaced one third of a Roman mile apart, were a series of turrets. The plan is to create a point of light where all the milefortlets and turrets were located, with an additional point of light between each of them. There will also be a number of stewarded points along the wall where people will be able to view the line of light.
The Swinside stone circle is a nearly perfect, 29m diameter circle located in the small hamlet of Swinside, in Cumbria, England. The circle is also referred to as Sunkenkirk, a reference to the devil who -- as legend has it -- cast the stone into the ground to derail plans to build a church.
The circle is largely isolated and is embedded in the land miles from the nearest farm track. Though many of the stones remain standing today, several have been bent inwards -- perhaps from the hooves of local sheep.
Mayburgh Henge is a single central stone, which dates back between 2000 and 1000 BC. It is 2.8m high and stands on a circular bank which is up to 6.5m high and 50m across its base. Antiquarians estimate that there were eight more stones - four in the centre (a 'four poster' megalith) and four marking its periphery - which were destroyed in 1720. Obvious ideas as to its use are ritualistic and religious, though it is not known for sure.
King Arthur's Round Table, as it is spuriously named (it predates the real King Arthur by about 2500 years) is contemporary of Mayburgh, and comprises a circular ditch surrounded by a 1.5m-deep, 12m-wide ditch. It is only 400m away from Mayburgh, and indeed seems to have suffered the same modern fate as its neighbour - two standing stones marking the Table's northern entrance vanished in the 17th century.
Moor Divock, occupying part of the Cumbrian village of Askham Fell, is the inconspicuous home to a number of interesting Bronze Age megaliths and cairns. White Raise is by far the largest cairn on the site, east of which lie two small stone circles; Moor Divock 4 and 5. Westwards lie hut circles and Tumuli.
However the largest and by far most significant megalith in the area is the large stone circle known as the Cockpit; located about a kilmometre west of 4 and 5, and measuring 26m in diameter. 75 stones mark its periphery, the tallest of which is just under a metre high. Another point of interest at Moor Divock is the 1.5m Cop Stone; a glacial erratic stone.
I'm sitting on the 15.49 to London Euston from Carlisle. It's boiling hot, the Cumbrian countryside is disappearing behind me and my jumper smells like yesterday's paper. But I'm happy, because we've just hah a hell of a week at the 
