Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Wednesday, 5 November 2025

Unearthing Hadrian’s Wall west of Carlisle


Archaeologists in Cumberland have opened up at Drumburgh the foundations of part of the continuation of Hadrian’s Wall west of Carlisle along the southern shore of the Solway Firth. 

Recent excavations in Carlisle have revealed significant evidence about life in the Roman city - arguably the last such community at this extremity of the Empire, and the equivalent of an outlier in the Nile Valley or the upper Euphrates. 

Revealing something of this westernmost section of the Wall is interesting as I think, from my visits there in past years, that although the line of the wall has been ascertained there is nothing visible above ground of the Roman structure until Carlisle itself is reached. 

The archaeological work is reported upon in an article from the BBC News website and it can be seen at Hadrian's Wall section discovered in Drumburgh dig

There is more about the location of the Wall at this point and about the post-Roman history of its remains from Wikipedia at Drumburgh


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