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This is Hadrian's Wall, symbol of empire during the late classical age.

It stretches across 73 miles of windy hills and haunting moors, from coast to coast.

A stark reminder of the ephemeral impermanence of man.

Like countless other sites on African plains in Syrian desert and German woodland, this colossal

fortification was designed to lock down the borders of the Roman Empire at their

maximum territorial extent during the early 2nd century AD. It wasn't the largest

fortification of its age. The Great Wall of Gorgon, built by the Sasanian Persians

to keep out step-riders to the north, dwarfs it in scale. Yet, it was especially

useful in protecting Rome's far northern frontier. And when the empire fell, in framing

the existence of those who came after. Here, on an isolated hilltop in the wind-swept north of England,

stood one of the most important garrisons along that wall.

Bird Oswald, Roman Fort.

It doesn't look like much today.

Fifteen others also once existed here too, spaced out

at regular intervals along the wall, each one manned by its own garrison of soldiers.

In the intervening period, many of their foundations have long since been carried away to build castles, farmsteads and towns.

But this one, in part no doubt due to its slightly inaccessible geography, survives to the present.

And, for a brief time during the 5th and 6th centuries some small part of Rome may have survived

here too. To the north the land dips steeply into an extensive boggy

mire known as the midchholm moss. For hundreds of years across this expanse of

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