The original plan for Hadrian’s Wall: a new purpose for Pons Aelius?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Several major issues remain around the eastern end of Hadrian’s Wall, due partly to the dense urban fabric of Tyneside. These concern the spacing of the interval structures in the first seven Wall miles, the course of the mural barrier in Newcastle, the purpose of the Roman bridge over the river Tyne (Pons Aelius) and the original eastern terminus of the Wall. This paper retraces the anchor points of our knowledge before zooming in to examine the Wall’s northern approach of the Tyne bridge and considering a possible new departure. Seeing the crucial role of river crossings in determining not just the line of the Wall but also the successive work sectors, the question is raised how far the Wall on Tyneside may originally have been planned to mirror the situation in the west. Before long, however, the project was overhauled, and effectively redesigned, in consequence of the so-called ‘fort decision’ and all the related changes, one of them concerning the Wall’s eastern terminus. Understanding the infancy of Roman Britain’s mural barrier requires exploring the eventful context in which this imperial prestige project took shape, got mixed up conceptually and was set right again around AD 122.