LAUSR

Americans have their Civil War (1861-65) as an endless source of both popular and scholarly fascination. The English have Roman Britain, from which Hadrian’s Wall, perhaps better called the vallum Aelium (AE 2004. 857), has inspired folklore and antiquarian curiosity, as well as spirited archaeological debates. As a shrine, the Wall has attracted pilgrims since 1849 to walk its remains — since 1886, a decennial rite, though disrupted by World Wars and revived in 1949. Discussions of the Wall abound. John Collingwood Bruce (1805-92), a Newcastle Presbyterian minister, antiquarian and popularizer of the Wall, inaugurated the pilgrimages. His guide to the remains, The wallet-book of the Roman Wall (1863), later entitled Handbook to the Roman Wall (1884), is still regularly updated.1 Further, the pilgrimages occasion supplements to the Handbook, notably those by E. Birley,2 P. Bidwell3 and N. Hodgson.4