Hadrian's Wall, Tunstall Avenue-Stephen Street (Wall mile 2)

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