The Romans were people who came from Rome. About 2,000 years ago they became so powerful that they began to conquer all the land around them. Eventually they ruled all the land and peoples around the Mediterranean as far north as modern day Germany. The city of Rome remained the centre of their Empire. Anybody living inside the Empire could become a Citizen and call himself or herself Roman.

The Romans who come to Britain did not just come from the city of Rome.

They came from various parts of the Roman Empire for many different reasons. Some were soldiers, some were merchants, and some were travellers exploring a new country.

Legionary soldiers first built Hadrian's Wall. A Legion recruited soldiers from the province where the legion was first formed (raised). Others would be recruited from the province were the legion was posted. Each legion could have men from many different countries.

Auxiliary soldiers garrisoned Hadrian's Wall after it had been built. The Legions were still in Britain, but stationed in cities like York, Chester and Lincoln. The auxiliary troops came from all over the Empire.

The Romans thought Britain a mystical land full of resources and strange peoples. To get to Britain the Romans had to cross the "Ocean" which was the edge of the known world. They tried to conquer Britain more than once. First, Julius Caesar, tried in 55BC and then again in 54BC. Nearly a hundred years later Emperor Claudius ordered a successful invasion in 43AD.

The Roman general Julius Caesar had already conquered Gaul (now called France). The Britons had been helping the Gauls in their battle against the Romans. This had angered Caesar. He wanted to invade Britain for three reasons: -

• Revenge - to get back at the Britons for helping the Gauls
• Power - invading Britain would increase the Roman Empire and make him look good.
• Materials - Britain had many things that the Romans wanted such as: -
• Corn
• Animals
• Silver - for coins and jewellery
• Gold - for jewellery and trade
• Tin - for cups, plates and mixing to make other metals
• Lead - for pipes and other things like coffins
• People - to use as slaves
• Wool
• Leather

The first invasion, in 55BC was not a success. He tried again a year later in 54 BC. Although he made some progress, reaching he left without fully conquering south east Britain.

Nearly a hundred years later, in 43 A.D., Emperor Claudius decided to try to invade Britain again. He had become Emperor after the death of Caligula and needed to be seen as a strong and forceful leader. Perhaps he wanted to be seen to be like the glorious Julius Caesar, who had crossed the Ocean to Britain. He ordered the invasion and then travelled to Britain to reinforce his conquest. He wanted to show that he was a strong man and gain the respect of the people of Rome. This time the Romans were successful.

Hadrian probably gave the order to build the Wall when he visited Britain in AD122. At the start of his reign there had been fighting in northern Britain. To make this part of the Roman Empire stronger Hadrian decided to have a permanent barrier built to create a frontier. Hadrian continued his travels around the Empire and established frontiers in other places, like Germany, Syria and the Sahara Desert.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands of legionaries and auxiliaries from the II Legion, VI Legion and XX Legion constructed Hadrian's Wall. Each legion could have as many as 5000 men. We don't know for certain, but we think it took the Roman legionaries about 6 years to complete the job, although some people think it must have taken longer. There were a number of changes to the plan while it was being built. Hadrian's Wall was built across one of the narrowest parts of the country linking two rivers. When it was finished the Wall was 80 Roman miles long (117km or 73 modern miles) and stretched from Wallsend on the river Tyne in the east to Bowness-on-Solway in the west. A system of forts, small forts (milefortlets) and watchtowers carried on along the Cumbria coast to Ravenglass in the west.

No-one is 100% certain as to why Emporer Hadrian wanted a Wall built in Britain. There are many theories about why the Wall was built: -

• To mark the Northern Boundary of Roman Britain, Hadrian was the first Emperor to mark the edge of the Empire, he constructed other frontiers in Germany, Syria and the Sahara Desert
• As a defensive barrier to separate the Romans from the barbarians and repel invasion
• As a customs frontier - a way of collecting taxes on goods leaving and entering Roman Britain - as stated by Hadrian's Roman biographer
• As a symbol of achievement for the Emperor and of Roman power
• A way to control the movement and communication between hostile tribes north and south of the Wall

Hadrian did not want the Wall to be built in wood. He wanted something that would show how strong the Roman Empire was. The Wall was built in short sections by legionaries. Building inscriptions were put on some of the parts used to build the Wall. These inscriptions have helped archaeologists find out who built parts of the Wall and when they built it.

Work started in the east on a stone wall about 5 metres high and 3 metres wide, perhaps with a walkway along the top. This original plan was changed during the building of the Wall and some parts of the Wall were 1.8 metres thick. This was probably so that the Roman legionaries could finish the job more quickly. The stone Wall extended to the river Irthing. Beyond this point the Wall was built of turf at first. This was perhaps because there was no suitable building stone nearby and the Romans wanted to finish the work quickly. Later on this part of the Wall was rebuilt in stone.

Hadrian's Wall is not just a wall, like one round a field.

Every Roman mile along the Wall there was a milecastle, a fortified gateway which allowed Roman soldiers to go on patrol to the north of Hadrian's Wall and control other people passing through the Wall.

Between the milecastles were two turrets at regular intervals from which soldiers could keep watch over the surrounding countryside. During the building it was decided to add forts to the plan of the Wall. In fact some of the turrets and sections of wall that had already been built were demolished to make room for the new forts. There were 16 forts in total along the length of the Wall. These meant that even more Roman soldiers were based along the wall and the frontier was more effectively controlled. There may have been 15 000 soldiers along the whole wall.

To the north of the Wall was a v-shaped deep defensive ditch. This made it difficult to cross the wall at any point other than a milecastle or a fort. Behind the wall was a flat-bottomed ditch with two large mounds of earth on each side. This is called the vallum. The vallum could only be crossed at Roman forts or main roads. This allowed the Romans to control people passing from the civilian part of Roman Britain into the area controlled by the army.

Visit the Museum of Antiquities Reticulum website

http://museums.ncl.ac.uk/reticulum

Or

BBC - Romans - Homepage

www.bbc.co.uk/education/romans/home.html

About 2500 years ago the Celts were the most powerful people in central and northern Europe. Although they shared a similar way of life, there was no single Celtic nation. There were many different groups or tribes of people who spoke related languages, and shared similar beliefs and customs. They worked metal and their art had a distinctive style. Before the Romans groups of Celts settled all across Europe from Turkey to Britain. As they settled in different places, their way of life changed and developed until some tribes were very different from others. As the Roman Empire became larger and more powerful, Roman armies fought and defeated the Celts until only the tribes in Britain and Ireland were left.

In places like Ireland and the north and west of Scotland some of the Celtic traditions survived until after the Roman Empire ended. The Romans had never really conquered these tribes. With the coming of Christianity there was a final flourish of Celtic culture which faded as the Saxons and Vikings settled in Britain.

There were many separate tribes headed by a King or Queen. These leaders would be chosen form the rich, powerful and noble families. Other noble would lead groups of warriors to support the Chieftain. Farmers and Craftworkers produced food and goods for the tribe. They were often highly valued for their important skills. The Chieftain and nobles protected the tribe from attack, while the farmers and craftworkers provided all the tribe needed.

Although they were fierce and wild as fighters, most Celtic people were farmers who lived in small settlements. These were usually built close to supplies of water and animals for hunting. They needed timber to build their homes and farmland to grow crops and graze livestock.

These small villages often started as the homes of a family group, with pens for the animal. All of the buildings were round, with roofs made of natural materials like thatch and wall made of a wooden frame covered with mud (wattle and daub).
Most Roundhouses had one room with a little furniture. Only the Chief could afford to employ crafts people to make furniture and other luxuries. There were no windows and only one small doorway, the light coming from the fire or from homemade candles. The family lived together, cooking, eating and sleeping in the Roundhouse.

The Roman Empire existed for hundreds of years; the Celtic tribes inside the Empire gradually took on the Roman way of life, many became Roman Citizens. Some Romans worshipped the Celtic gods and goddesses. People began to build rectangular houses rather than roundhouses. Trade across the Empire introduced them new foods and other goods.

In the south of England, there were many Roman style buildings, large towns with baths, amphitheatres, temples built around a forum (marketplace) and government offices (called a basilica).

On the borders of the Roman Empire, near Hadrian's Wall, local people would have been slower to take on Roman ways. There were small settlements near most of the forts where people from all over the Roman Empire would have lived together. When the soldiers left the forts at the end of the Empire may of these settlements remained, some even grew into towns that are still here today.

The Roman Empire had become too large for the Emperor to hold on to by the end of the Fourth Century and the Empire had been split into two parts, each with it's own Emperor. Many of the tribes outside the Roman Empire joined together to attack Rome. This meant that most of the Army was ordered to defend Gaul and Rome. With all this fighting it became difficult to collect the huge sums of money needed to be collected to pay for the Army and all of the public officials. It took nearly a hundred years, but the Empire slowly crumbled

The Britons were left to govern themselves. Rome had too many problems, without trying to hold on to the edges of the Empire. With no Army or Roman officials to order the country, pay the soldiers, collect taxes or maintain the roads, the people of Britain began to look after themselves. They looked to strong local leaders to protect them, much as they had done over 300 years ago, before the Romans came to Britain. New settlers arrived and took land by force. The Saxons and the Vikings came to live alongside the Britons. The Romans became a memory and their building, like Hadrian's Wall became described as "the work of Giants".

Some of the Celtic traditions survived, particularly in Ireland, Scotland and Northern England, however these began fade away as Britain gradually became the countries we know today, England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

Visit the Museum of Antiquities Reticulum website

http://museums.ncl.ac.uk/reticulum

Or

BBC - celts - Homepage

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/celts/

Throughout the world there are some places and objects that many people feel are important enough to everyone in the world to conserve for future generations and to pass on the stories of the places.
Importantly these places may not mean the same things to all people, but most people would agree that they are worth keeping. This idea is called universal significance.

Over the last one hundred years things like pollution, increasing urbanisation, natural disasters, poverty and mass tourism, have threatened our global heritage. Important sites have been damaged or destroyed. UNESCO, with a number of international partners, has taken on the role of deciding what is important to all people across the globe. They have devised a set of criteria to designate places as World Heritage Sites. In 1972 these formed the basis of the World Heritage Convention. Governments can apply to have sites inscribed as World Heritage Sites, and if all partners agree the site can be added to the list. Sites can added as cultural (constructed by people e.g. the Pyramids), natural (e.g. Everest National Park) or a combination of both (e.g. St. Kilda, an island off the Atlantic coast of Scotland)

The concept of World Heritage: -

• Conservation of heritage of outstanding universal value
• Both cultural and natural heritage
• Heritage which is immovable
• Conservation of irreplaceable heritage
• Conservation of world heritage is dependant on collective international action

Taken from World Heritage in Young Hands: An educational resource kit for teachers, available at World Heritage Education

For more information on World Heritage go to World Heritage Centre

There are over 812 World Heritage Sites in 137 countries. For a full list got to the World Heritage Centre at a http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/

In the UK there are currently 26 Sites

Cultural sites

• Blaenavon Industrial Landscape (2000)
• Blenheim Palace (1987)
• Canterbury Cathedral, St Augustine's Abbey, and St Martin's Church (1988)
• Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd (1986)
• City of Bath (1987)
• Derwent Valley Mills (2001)
• Durham Castle and Cathedral (1986)
• Frontiers of the Roman Empire (1987)
• Heart of Neolithic Orkney (1999)
• Historic Town of St George and Related Fortifications, Bermuda (2000)
• Ironbridge Gorge (1986)
• Liverpool - Maritime Mercantile City (2004)
• Maritime Greenwich (1997)
• New Lanark (2001)
• Old and New Towns of Edinburgh (1995)
• Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (2003)
• Saltaire (2001)
• Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites (1986)
• Studley Royal Park including the Ruins of Fountains Abbey (1986)
• Tower of London (1988)
• Westminster Palace, Westminster Abbey and Saint Margaret's Church (1987)

Mixed Sites

• St Kilda (1986)

Natural Sites

• Dorset and East Devon Coast (2001)
• Giant's Causeway and Causeway Coast (1986)
• Gough and Inaccessible Islands (1995)
• Henderson Island (1988)

Hadrian's Wall poses particular management and conservation problems because of: -

• it's size
• the number of different uses of the land
• the large numbers of owners and occupiers involved.

In 1996, after widespread consultation between government departments and agencies, local authorities, archaeologists, landowners, farmers and the public, English Heritage produced a Management Plan to define a set of principles and guidelines for the monument.

Stretching for 117km the Wall passes through countryside whose ownership varies from private individuals, local authorities, the National Trust, farmers and the highway authority. A large part of the Wall is encompassed within the Northumberland National Park.

The Management Plan has no statutory basis but works because the partners involved use their existing powers to achieve the Plan's objective. The Plan aims to achieve the correct balance between the different needs affecting the Wall Heritage Sites: -

• Protection of the Site
• Conservation of the archaeology and its setting
• Conservation of the natural environment
• Interests of the host community
• Opportunities and Problems of Access
• Contribution to the local economy

The Plan has set out objectives for 5 years and 30 years to ensure that the Wall is properly conserved within its landscape, that it is accessible to the public and that the interests of the host community are respected and supported.
The English Heritage Hadrian's Wall Co-ordination Unit works under the guidance of the Management Plan Committee, and acts as a champion and co-ordinating body and to undertake particular initiatives. The current management plan can be downloaded below.

Downloads

People have been visiting Hadrian's Wall for centuries. Visitor patterns in the last 200 years have developed from Victorian antiquarians to today's visitors from all around the world.

An estimated million visits are made to Hadrian's Wall every year, of which around 580,000 are to the ten forts and museums open to the public. With the exception of the Museum of Antiquities in Newcastle and the fort of Arbeia, all these have an entry charge. The table below shows recent visitor numbers.

The table and graph below show the devastating effect of Foot and Mouth on the visitor numbers to Housesteads. Housesteads was closed at the end of February and fully reopened in November in 2001.

Longer-term trends show that whilst the numbers of visitors to the forts and museums in the central area (Corbridge, Chester's, Housesteads and Vindolanda) have declined since the 1970s, the numbers of people out walking around the Wall area, particularly in the central sector have increased.

Research done in 2000 showed that approximately 23% of visitors in the central sector of Hadrian's Wall are from overseas. Approximately 69% of visitors in this area are on holiday.

SITE	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Arbeia	77105	74309	77559	70638	87279	77429	78495	99412	97892	99664	96339
Museum of Antiquities	31385	19503	18680	16748	16328	17949	15846	15494	17666	18910	17094
Segedunum				43340	60734	44293	50460	46551
Corbridge	23695	22861	23188	25769	23925	26041	20270	16625	20955	16601	22398
Chesters	70012	68570	77809	76642	77365	72382	69762	58192	61532	65070	62503
Housesteads	126756	127389	122189	123559	114033	119177	110150	12428	106414	116530	114797
Vindolanda	67515	68041	71770	71586	68052	72893	70775	66181	78796	87039	84278
Roman Army Museum	54316	53701	54358	48950	44749	47301	45861	37779	45672	52001	54103
Birdoswald	26414	34899	40607	37536	36614	38742	36598	31067	35360	39039	37798
Tullie House	63593	57034	59587	61891	59573	45616	40105	48856	47516	33942	33858
Senhouse	3000	2677	2914	3396	5754	6029	6171	7863	6475	6676	8904
Total	543791	528984	548661	536715	533672	522359	537373	454631	562571	585932	578923

Outside of the urban areas of Tyneside and Carlisle tourism is now a major industry and employs as many people as manufacturing and construction combined. (source:annual business enquiry employee analysis).

Tourism is estimated to be worth at least £300 million in the whole area covered by the Hadrian's Wall Country. This area is defined as the area ten miles either side of the Line of Hadrian's Wall to Bowness on Solway and then five miles inland down the West Cumbrian coastal strip to Ravenglass. This expenditure includes spend by day visitors, people on holiday, people on business trips and people staying with friends and relations.

The five main areas of visitor spend are on

Accommodation

Food and Drink

Recreation

Shopping

Transport

Example of tourism businesses include

Bed and Breakfasts, Hotels, Self catering cottages

Cafes

Guided tours

Sustainable Tourism is defined by the World Tourism Organisation as:

"Tourism which meets the needs of present tourists and host regions while protecting and enhancing opportunity for the future"

To deliver this is a huge challenge. Much work has been done on this in the UK and this is gradually becoming embedded in the approach to visitor management, especially in protected areas such as National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and World Heritage Sites.

One approach to this in the UK is known as the "VICE" model. This can be summarised as having a visitor management plan that

Communicates a sense of stewardship in all VISITORS, that welcomes them and improves their enjoyment, understanding and responsible behaviour

Works with the INDUSTRY to provide high quality, environmentally aware services and market them to appropriate audiences throughout the year

Empowers the local COMMUNITY, especially young people, and creates ownership through involvement in tourism matters

Promotes a better understanding of the ENVIRONMENT and manages all tourism development in a way that, wherever possible, it has a positive effect on its surroundings and local resources.

In other words, maintaining that balance between the visitor, the environment and the host community in the interests, not just of today, but for the future.

Sustainable Tourism is sometimes also called Green Tourism.

Sustainable tourism is at the heart of the Hadrian's Wall World Heritage Site Management Plan and the work of the Hadrian's Wall Tourism Partnership and the National Trail team. Specific examples of how this has been delivered since the mid 1990s include:

Development of the Hadrian's Wall Bus and transport network. This includes development of places where it is safe and easy to leaves the car and travel on by bus, foot or bicycle.

Development of the Hadrian's Wall Path National Trail and the family of circular walks that link to this.

Development of linear and circular Cycle routes including the Hadrian's Cycleway

Work with businesses to raise awareness of the special qualities of the WHS, environmental good business practice and appropriate product development eg: encouraging added value through providing for needs of walkers and cyclists; introducing Roman recipes and using more local produce;

Marketing the whole area around the WHS to encourage longer stays and more local spend; greater links with local communities, towns, attractions and services and the WHS; and between the Roman sites themselves.

Working with local producers and retailers to encourage local production of quality produce, gifts and souvenirs.

Work on wall wide and local education and community projects to raise awareness, involvement and local enjoyment of the WHS.

And most important .. Developing plans for the whole World Heritage Site that improves the visitor experience and economy as well as meeting the sustainable objectives outlined above.