i9i4' I 9 I 5-] Hadrian's Wall. 147 



ated. Let us set off along the wall again in search of another 

 characteristic structure. I have said that the stations were 

 about five Roman miles apart. But the intervening portions 

 of the wall had to be patrolled, and to facilitate this, and also 

 to afford an opportunity of passing through from north to 

 south at shorter intervals than five miles, there were estab- 

 lished a series of smaller fortified posts, which, as they occur 

 at distances of about one Roman mile from each other, have 

 been termed mile-castles. Of these, one of the best preserved 

 is Cawtield's mile- castle, and the line of the wall comes up to 

 it to form its northern face. The massive walls enclose an area 

 of about fifty feet square, and there are two gates, one in each 

 of the northern and southern walls. It is quite evidently not 

 a castle in the ordinary sense of the word. Any erections 

 within it have probably been of wood and placed against the 

 side walls, and the ground within, which is not levelled in 

 any way, has the same slope north and south as the ground 

 outside. 



It was in one of these mile-castles that an inscribed stone 

 was found, which is one of the evidences that the wall was built 

 by the Emperor Hadrian. The inscription is : " In honour of 

 the Emperor Caesar Trajanus Hadrianus Augustus, the second 

 legion, styled the August, erected this by command of Aulus 

 Plautorius Nepos, Legate and Propraetor." Aulus Plautorius 

 Nepos was the Governor-General of Britain during Hadrian's 

 reign, and he it was who actually directed the building of the 

 wall. It is supposed that similar tablets were inserted in the 

 walls of each mile-castle, and many fragments of them have 

 been found. 



The wall goes boldly forward up hill and down over these 

 Northumbrian moors. A characteristic bit of it is at a 

 place called ' Cuddy's Crags,' not after the patient beast of 

 burden, but after St Cuthbert, who was a native of this 

 locality, and who must have seen the Roman Wall almost in 

 its original state as he journeyed over the wild country in his 

 missionary work. King Arthur is also much associated with 

 these parts. There are two hills close by here known as the 

 King's and the Queen's Hills. The story goes that one morn- 

 ing King Arthur and Queen Guinevere were seated on their 

 respective hills, the Queen engaged in combing her hair. 



