Scotland England and the Wall: The Witches Memorial

Thursday, June 4, 2009

The Witches Memorial

It took us quite some time to find the Witches Memorial. Every time we walked up or down the Royal Mile we looked for it to no avail. This afternoon Shelley spotted it on the side of a building up near the castle.

It was a fountain originally but now there are flowers planted in it. The memorial recognizes the fact that there were over 300 witches burned in Edinburgh. The last one in 1722.

If someone accused you of being a witch it was a bit of a no win situation. The accused were often bound with their thumbs tied to their ankles and the accused would be dunked in a pond. If you died the perpetrators were comforted by the fact that you were innocent and would go to heaven. If not, you were obviously a witch, so they burned you at the stake.

Practicing this this type of tough justice was finally abolished in 1736.

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Hadrian's Wall Background

Hadrian's Wall was built following a visit by Roman Emperor Hadrian in 122 AD. He was quite concerned about raiders from the north. The Roman's were experiencing military difficulties in Britain and he was eager to impose order. He also most likely saw the building of such an impressive wall as a symbol of Roman power in occupied Britain. It was constructed to keep Roman Britain safe from hostile attacks from the Picts. It took somewhere between four to six years to complete.

It was the northernmost boundary of the Roman Empire at that time. The wall stretches from Newcastle, Wallsend-on-Tyne in the east to Bowness on the Solway Firth in the west.

The wall was 73 miles or 117 kilometres long, about 8 to10 feet wide, and 15 feet high. In addition to the wall, the Romans built a system of small forts called milecastles which housed by 60 men every Roman mile along its entire length, with smaller towers every 1/3 mile. Sixteen larger forts holding from 500 to 1000 troops were built into the wall, with large gates on the north face. To the south of the wall the Romans dug a wide ditch called a vallum with six foot high earth banks.

The width and height of Hadrian's Wall was dependent on whatever construction materials which were available nearby. East of River Irthing the wall was made from squared stone and measured 3 metres (9.7 ft) wide and five to six metres (16–20 ft) high, while west of the river the wall was made from turf and measured 6 metres (20 ft) wide and 3.5 metres (11.5 ft) high. This does not include the wall's ditches, berms and forts. The central section measured eight Roman feet wide (7.8 ft or 2.4 m) on a 10-foot (3.0 m) base. Some parts of this section of the wall survive to a height of 7 or 8 feet