I tagged this post "history" and "homeschool" because our trip to the Roman fort at Segedunum yesterday was on the first day of what I'm calling our Summer School Program (more about that in another post).
Just outside of Newcastle upon Tyne, the fort is right alongside the River Tyne. Some parts of the ruins are actually underneath a busy highway and a nearby apartment complex. The name of the district/village where the ruins are located is called Wallsend. Why? Because that's where Hadrian's Wall (which we saw a few weeks ago) joins up with the walls of the fort. The wall's end.
All that's left of the buildings now. Just outlines on the ground, really.
Merrit, Ollie, and a friend inside the ruins of the building that used to
be the fort's armory.
From the top of the nine-story observation tower, you can see the outlines
of where the fort's various buildings used to stand. On the TV screen, an
animation shows a time-lapse representation of the land stretching out
below...grasslands to Roman fort to fort in ruins to farmland to coal colliery
to shipyard to present-day archaeological site and museum. Very cool.
The boys duel like gladiators in the gift shop.
Merrit works at building an arch with oversized foam bricks.
What the latrine in the barracks' bath house would have looked like.
Inside the bath house, which has been reconstructed based on the ruins and
what archaeologists know about how the Romans lived and used bath houses.
This was the "warm bath room" in the barrack's bath house, where a fountain like
this one would have spouted warm water for washing the face and body.
Saturday. 1:30 p.m. Mike says, "Let's drive west."
Okay.
Hi, Mike here....in order to keep things "real", I'm going to edit this post along the way...just so you get a correct understanding of what this day was all about. My thoughts will be in italics....because that's what my thoughts look like.....slanted.
With no real destination in mind and having done no pre-planning or preparation, I grabbed our New Members packet from the National Trust before we left the house and then we stopped at a gas station to buy a road map of Great Britain and Ireland.
My lap in the car.
Mike decided he wanted to see the Irish Sea, at the other side of the country. So we fueled up and hit the road.
You didn't think I mean the gas tank, did you?
It was drizzly, but we didn't want to be cooped up inside the house all day. We decided to travel along Highway B6318, a two-lane road that runs through what's known as Hadrian's Wall Country. I like Mir's use of the word "decided"...what she means to say is, we drove in circles until we saw a sign that said "Hadrians Wall Thisaway----->" And we happened to follow that road through the country side.
B6318 and the ancient wall, begun in AD 122, run side by side from east to west across England's northernmost counties. There's also a footpath that many hikers and backpackers walk each year, from sea to sea. Eric and Anne, we're going to hike along the wall when you guys come out...we've already picked the beginning of the hike and the end...we won't be going sea to sea, just the best part of it IMO.
Photo source: www.en.wikipedia.org
As we drove along, we knew we were on the right road, we could see hikers on the footpath, but where was the wall? I mean, there were lots of walls. All looked really old and broken down in places and covered with moss. Does a 2,000-year-old rock wall look different from a 200-year-old wall?
We stopped for a late lunch at 3:00 at the Errington Arms.
As soon as we walked in, Mike said he felt like he was at the beginning of a D&D quest. This reference was 100% lost on me because I was cool in high school. Sheesh....OK, so yea, most games did begin at old taverns where you meet rangers and magic users and went on quests for things like the "trousers of the shimmering whale" or the "black sword of the phoenix"....oh no...I'm a dork.
Ollie is the dungeon master. Did I get the lingo right?
Can we stop the D&D references now please?
This D&D geek grew up alright.
The food was great. Because it was between lunch and
dinner, they were only serving sandwiches.
No bother, everything we ordered was delicious.
The big boys both had Wiltshire ham and mature cheddar with tomato
on homemade ciabatta bread.
After a great meal and a pot of hot tea, we ventured onto the Hadrian's Wall Path--just for a little bit. An entry point to the path went up and over the rock wall immediately behind the Errington Arms.
Mike helps Ollie up and over the step-ladder.
He does look a little like a hooded, dark figure from a D&D adventure, no? For crying out loud...I was looking down because
I thought I had stepped in some sheep dip.
We walked straight through a sheep pasture.
Don't step in the poo, boys. We called this the poopath,
also known as the turtrail.
I am the stoic sheep of the north, I will slay you with my dominant stance!
Not Hadrian's Wall.
Just one of many lookalikes.
Nice one Mir....get everyone's hopes up...yep,
just another wall.
When we finally saw the wall, it was pretty obvious that it was different from the many old, mossy walls we'd been seeing the whole drive so far. It was much wider than any of the other walls we'd seen.
Photo source: en.wikipedia.org
Eventually, we had to choose whether we were going to go southwest, toward Carlisle, or northwest, toward--well, not much--just a few small towns that looked like they were nestled along the shores of the Solway Firth, which opened up to the Irish Sea. (I think "firth" is what they call a bay or sound in Scotland...?)
Yes, Scotland. Somehow in my awesome map-reading abilities, I missed the border. So Mike goes, "Um, Scotland?" as we pass the Welcome to Scotland sign. He looks over at me. OK, at this point I kind of started losing it...Mir was the navigator, her job was to navigate. And now we were in Scotland, which was cool, but not our intended destination. I usually enjoy spontaneous trips, but by now I'd seen enough sheep and was ready to see the water.
Oops.
And we drive into this little town called Gretna Green. We see signs for The Old Blacksmith Shop and The Blacksmith's Museum. And there are lots of little B&Bs along the main road. And a run down hotel or two that maybe, once upon a time, had been semi-grand. And then we're out of town and back on quiet two-lane road with nothing but fields of sheep. Awesome.
We try to go left/south towards the water's edge. We try it in East Rigg, then Rigg, and then Newbie. In Newbie, we found a road that went down to the firth, but were blocked by the gates to a chemical plant.
No waterfront. Nowhere.
It's about 7:00 by this time. The boys are hungry. Their bedtime is in 30 minutes. We learned on our last spontaneous trip to Scotland to keep an overnight bag in the car, so this time we are prepared. And so we say, "Let's look for a place to spend the night and grab some dinner." ...but, there were not restaurants around, and every little town we went through was dead quiet...except for the sheep.
Our plan is evolving on the fly, which is sort of driving Merrit crazy because he keeps saying, "Where are we gooooooing?" We try to be understanding because, after all, they've been in the car now for a long time. Mir is being very gracious with the term understanding...I nearly wrenched my back trying to swing around the front seat to tell Merrit to quit whining...oh no...we're all losing it. This is where you read about the family who got lost in Scotland and all that was found was a burned out bmw, empty cracker packs and a note reading..."The sheep are all around us now, watching...WATCHING us unfold (see what I did there?), so we've decided to join them. Goodbye everyone, see ewe later..."
I wish I had some pictures of Gretna Green but, we didn't take a single photo. Why?
1. The town was sort-of run down and forgettable; not much to see
2. It was raining harder now
3. We were on a mission: Food and shelter
We did however, video this exciting moment:
I ducked through the rain to about six different lodges, inns, hotels, and B&Bs. For a small town, this place sure had a lot of hotels! And, curiously, every one of them was booked! We were flummoxed. We use this word when we play D&D too.
At one hotel, I asked the receptionist, "Is there some kind of convention going on or something? Everywhere is booked." And she looked at me like I had a second head and said, "Well, there are a lot of weddings..."
Every hotel I went into had large framed photographs (like 50 or more!) of the different brides who'd had their receptions there. At one motor lodge, I walked through a wedding reception (bride in white gown and groom in a KILT...not kidding!) to get to the reception desk. It felt like a scene from "The Wedding Crashers." I was tempted to grab a glass of champagne and start talking up the guests, but Mike and the kids were waiting in the car, so...
I said to Mike, "What's up with anvils in this town?" Every hotel I'd gone into had a huge anvil in the lobby, or propping open a door, or whatever. This was a first for me. I'd never seen an anvil in real life--only in Roadrunner cartoons. And in one day I must have seen seven. Very weird.
We decided to drive to Carlisle. Thankfully it was only 11 miles away. My map reading skills, again, are horrible. It looked, like, really far away on the map! I would like to point out that this is the time Mir chooses to confess that her map reading skills are horrible...not on a 7 hr drive through the country but here on a blog. Neato.
So we find a vacancy, but it was £100, and not even that nice of a hotel and so I say, "Don't kill me, but why don't we grab some dinner and just drive back home? Look, it only took us 10 minutes to get to Carlisle on the main highway; I bet it's not that far back to Newcastle." And, for the first time, I used the map's grid and key to work out (duh!) the distance between Point A and Point B. "It looks like it's only about 54 miles to get back home." HA HA HA....oh boy, that's a good one buddy"
So we stop for dinner.
Mike, disenchanted with England and Scotland by this point, suggests
McDonald's.
And then regrets it.
With lead bricks in our bellies, but having spent only £9 to feed a family of four (isn't that how they ALWAYS getcha?), we get in the car and find our way to highway A69. The dual carriageway is going to get us the 50-odd miles to Newcastle in less than an hour! Sweeeeeet.
Because it stays light outside so late now, it was dusk all the way home. The boys slept, Mike and I listened to music and watched the fields pass by, enjoying the idea of the money we'd saved by skipping a hotel and the thought of waking up in our own bed in the morning.
Our mellow drive back went something like this:
Now, are you ready for the punchline?
We were talking the next morning about how our whole trip--but especially our detour to Gretna Green--was like an episode of "The Twilight Zone." So Mike googles Gretna Green, Scotland. From en.wikipedia.org:
Gretna Green is one of the world's most popular wedding destinations, hosting over 5000 weddings each year, and one of every six Scottish weddings.[2]
Gretna's famous "runaway marriages" began in 1753 when Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act was passed in England; it stated that if both parties to a marriage were not at least 21 years old, then parents had to consent to the marriage. This Act did not apply in Scotland, where it was possible for boys to marry at 14 and girls at 12 years old with or without parental consent (see Marriage in Scotland). Many elopers fled England, and the first Scottish village they encountered was Gretna Green. The Old Blacksmith's Shop, built around 1712, and Gretna Hall Blacksmith's Shop (1710) became, in popular folklore at least, the focal tourist points for the marriage trade. The Old Blacksmith's opened to the public as a visitor attraction as early as 1887.
The local blacksmith and his anvil have become the lasting symbols of Gretna Green weddings. Scottish law allowed for "irregular marriages", meaning that if a declaration was made before two witnesses, almost anybody had the authority to conduct the marriage ceremony. The blacksmiths in Gretna became known as "anvil priests".
Since 1929 both parties in Scotland have had to be at least 16 years old, but they still may marry without parental consent. In England and Wales, the age for marriage is now 16 with consent and 18 without.
Gretna's two blacksmiths' shops and countless inns and smallholding became the backdrops for hundreds of thousands of weddings. Today there are several wedding venues in and around Gretna Green, from former churches to purpose-built chapels. The services at all the venues are always performed over an iconic blacksmith's anvil. Gretna Green endures as one of the world's most popular wedding venues, and thousands of couples come from around the world to be married 'over the anvil' at Gretna Green.
So there you have it, we stumbled into a one-of-a-kind destination and didn't even know it. Gretna Green. Not that we'll be going back. Ever.
What's the difference between Great Britain, the United Kingdom, and England? Here's your answer. I was enlightened and, if this is something you're interested in, you will be, too.
And here's a fun blog post I just came across yesterday all about the history of the Union Jack (for the little-bit-of-this-and-a-little-bit-of-that approach, it actually looks pretty darn good) and how it influenced the creation of the American flag.
