Tyne and Wear HER(201): Hadrian's Wall, Tunstall Avenue-Stephen Street (Wall mile 2) - Details
201
Newcastle
Hadrian's Wall, Tunstall Avenue-Stephen Street (Wall mile 2)
Byker
NZ26NE NZ26SE
Defence
Frontier Defence
Roman
C2
Demolished Building
Though it is still generally accepted that the Wall ran along the south side of the Fossway and Shields Road, with the ditch and berm under the roads, a number of archaeological explorations have failed to find evidence for it: in 1980 at 260-282 Shields Road; in 1985 at 4-36 Shields Rd; in 1987at 36-78 Shields Rd., and in 1995 on the west side of Stephen St. [However, in 1906 a 7 feet wide wall was reported "in the yard of 105 Shields Road, at a depth of about 9 feet…", ie. On the NORTH side.] No evidence for any turrets has been found in this section. The early antiquarian Stukeley depicted Milecastle 3 but it was not found in 1974 at the traditional site (NZ 264 646). Substantial remains of the Wall were finally located in February 2001 on the site of a new public square outside the swimming baths on the south side of Shields Road. A 29 metres stretch of Wall foundations were revealed, 2.5 metres wide constructed of a rubble core between large edging blocks. It had been built on the site of a native settlement, evidenced by a series of drainage ditches and stakeholes. Three rows of defensive pits (cippi) were revealed between the Wall and the ditch. 49 pits were traced over a distance of 32 metres, each around 79cm x 40cm and 46cm deep. These pits would have originally held entanglements of sharpened branches which would have served the same purpose as barbed wire. To date these pits had only been found along stretches of Wall associated with a fort, such as at Buddle Street, Wallsend. A layer of roughly-squared sandstone blocks bonded with yellow-brown clay was found in a small trial pit excavated inside Nos. 40-42 Shields Road in December 2002 and taken to be the foundation course of Hadrian's Wall. The remains are better preserved and more deeply buried than those found at the public square the previous year. No trace of the monument was found in a pit dug inside No. 8 Shields Road. SCHEDULED ANCIENT MONUMENT AND UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE
280
652
NZ280652
<< HER 201 >> JC. Bruce, 1885, Roman Altar from Byker, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle, 2, I (1882-84), pp. 357-8
M.H. Dodds, ed. 1930, The Wall from Wallsend to Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland County History, XIII, pp. 495-6
E. Birley,1960, Hadrian's Wall: some structural problems, Archaeologia Aeliana, 4, XXXVIII, pp. 39-49
G. Simpson, 1978, The Narrow Wall between Newcastle and Wallsend... unpublished typescript
J.C. Bruce & C.M. Daniels, 1978 , The Handbook to the Roman Wall, 13th edition, p. 60
Ordnance Survey - Hadrian's Wall, W 1/9-13, NZ 2765 SE, 2764 NE, NW, 2664 NE, NW
F.O. Grew, ed. 1980, Roman Britain in 1979, Britannia, Vol. 11, p. 358
J. Bennett, 1980, Shields Road, South side nos. 260-82 CEU 187
J. Bennett, 1981, Fossway, South side, no. 174 east to Baret Rd, CEU 321
P.S. Austen, 1985, Shields Road, South side, nos. 4-36, trad. site of M/c 3, CEU 347
P. Austen, Excavation report, 1986
P.S. Austen, 1987, Shields Road, South side, nos. 36-78, CEU 65
P.S. Austen, 1989, Union Road, North side, nos. 11-17, CEU 76
W.B. Griffiths, 1995, Stephen St, West side
W.H. Wells, 1909,Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle, 3, III (for 1907-08), p. 192
English Heritage, 2001, News From Hadrian's Wall, Issue 13, April 2001, p 18
J. Mabbitt, 2002, Tyne and Wear Museums, Nos 8 and 40-42 Shields Road, Byker, Newcastle upon Tyne, Archaeological Evaluation
G. Brogan, 2002, Tyne & Wear Museums, Shields Road, Byker, Archaeological Assessment
J. McKelvey, 2003, Recent discoveries of defensive features at the eastern end of Hadrian, Archaeology North, No. 21 Winter 2003, pp 12-13; David J. Breeze, 2006, J. Collingwood Bruce's Handbook to the Roman Wall, 14th edition; Guy de la Bedoyere, 2005, Hadrian's Wall History and Guide; Tyne And Wear Museums, 2010, 24-46 Shields Road, Byker - Archaeological Excavation