The youngsters of the YAC well remember their Sunday afternoon visit some two years ago, off-season, to see the Roman stones in the garden and to be taken into the hall to use a step ladder to have a close look at the little white altar to the Nymphs set up by Rubrius Successus. The really high spot, however, was at the end of the visit, to disappear from the adults’ view altogether and accompany Dame Jean herself - to feed the peacocks with left-over scones. Melrose people certainly miss the tallish figure with the headscarf in the High Street, bidding ‘Good morning’ en route to and from Hettie’s.

The main questions explored by the speakers (see Appendix overleaf) may be summarised as follows.

The Roman Army is typically seen as an army of occupation, but, realistically, would this still be the perception of the local native population after two or three hundred years? It seems unlikely. Yet where is the evidence in the NE of any large-scale interaction by the local population in the Roman economy?

‘evidence of the indigenous population’

Where are the villas, market centres and villages? Away from the upland areas evidence of the indigenous population is almost imperceptible. Indeed, it has been difficult to detect any evidence of a civil population other than (perhaps) at the vici.

It is argued that the construction of Hadrian’s Wall and its associated roads and bridges must have displaced large numbers of the population and taken up significant parts of their land ( and thus their sources of sustenance) especially in the more agriculturally important parts of the lowland areas. This may be part of the explanation.The lowland areas of this region have been intensively developed, however, particularly in the Industrial Age, and much has undoubtedly been lost, even in comparatively recent times. Ironically, the slow but steady acquisition of evidence that is now taking place is largely due to the funding by developers of rescue archaeology, as the process of urbanisation continues apace.

‘Iron Age fields overlaid by Romano - British’

In the South, villas are associated with market centres and lines of communication. Where is this evidence in the NE? Evidence from South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire suggests that the villas there were more associated with market centres than with fort vici, and that the local economy was not entirely dependent on the Roman Army. Comparable evidence from the NE is much less clear, although there are three examples of native villas-cum- settlements at Old Durham, Ingleby Barwick and Dalton-on-Tees. There may be two further examples at Darlington and Old Washington. Were these the homes of a local elite or of an immigrant population (perhaps retired army veterans)?

Quarry Farm, at Ingleby Barwick near Yarm on Teesside, has produced evidence of occupation ranging from the late Neolithic, through the Bronze and Iron Ages, to the Anglo-Saxon period.

Intriguingly, the late Iron Age curvilinear fields have been overlaid by a Romano-British rectilinear arrangement. The site also contains a typical ‘winged’ villa. Could this be evidence of new owners or of emulation of ‘modern’ practice by the native owners? An argument has also been advanced that there may be such sites every two or three miles in this area, but proof is still lacking. North of Hadrian’s Wall, excavations currently in progress at Pegswood near Morpeth may yield useful information.

‘not a sign of Roman pottery’

Did the locals not participate in the Roman economy? Excavations at two Iron Age sites near Ponteland, and thus less than five miles from the Wall, have revealed clear evidence of contemporary cluster settlements but not a sign of Roman pottery (indeed, six weeks’ work produced only thirty shards of any kind). Taking another example, was the vicus at Piercebridge [beyond the wall to the right in the photo] a consequence of the desire of locals to interact with the garrison of the Roman fort, or was the fort co-located with an existing native settlement at the river crossing? In either case, the relationship of the Piercebridge vicus to the site of a major native settlement less than three miles away at Stanwick begs many questions.

‘the acquisition of Roman woodworking tools’

A comparison with another ‘frontier’ location, that of Cornwall, is interesting. Most of the work here has been undertaken in the area W of Bodmin, where there is evidence of enclosed settlements in occupation from c 400BC until after the departure of the Romans. The only known Roman fort W of Exeter is at Nanstallon (Trumpet 18, p 8) and, despite the fact that the mineral resources of the region were clearly of interest to the Romans, the overall impact of the Roman Army on Cornwall appears to have been negligible. There is evidence that the locals imported Roman styles in pots etc., but often copied these in stone. The scale of the interior space in some of the settlement houses is such, however, that their equivalent is not found again until the mediaeval period, leading to the suggestion that such clear-span constructions may have been due to the acquisition by the local population of Roman woodworking techniques and tools.

‘a civil administration of sufficient status’

Did the heavy Roman presence in the NE submerge the local tribal elite and prevent both their emergence and participation in the Roman economy? One tantalising observation relates to the Newcastle to Brough-on-Humber Roman road (very roughly the A19). Unlike nearby Dere Street, and apart from the fort at Chester-le-street, this road has yielded no evidence to date of any other forts or milestones. After its construction, was it handed into the care and maintenance of the local civil population? If so, it argues the case for the existence of a civil administration of sufficient status to be recognised by, and able to enter into a working relationship with the Romans.

This 13th Conference produced lively and informed discussions.

Arbeia Conference Appendix: Speakers
Nick Hodgson (Tyne & Wear Museums): The Roman Army and Settlement in NE England: the background
Richard Annis (Arch. Servs, Durham Univ): Recent excavations at the Roman villa at Quarry Farm, Ingleby Barwick
Steve Speak (Tyne & Wear Museums): The transition from Iron Age to Roman Settlement in NE England.
Henrietta Quinnell (Exeter Univ):Cornwall in the Roman Period.
Paul Bidwell (Tyne & Wear Museums): Roman roads and bridges in NE England.
Richard Hingley (Durham Univ): Roman and native interaction in NE England: the evidence of settlement

Brian Ashby, retired psychologist, welcomed a man to the Exhibition who indicated that he had visited the area before - in the first century AD. He had been a trainee officer in the Roman army and thought he recognised one of the replica shields and an intaglio as his own. Not re-incarnation; just incarnation.

Comment, on the Walk, of David Shanks, Classics doyen at Selkirk HS .” It’s the people who were here that gave the site its importance. The environment is interesting - the people gave it life”.

Lady Walker “I heard about Trimontium as a child, reading Rosemary Sutcliff”. ‘That would be The Eagle of the Ninth’. “No, it was Frontier Wolf - about the territory North of Hadrian’s Wall in the 4th century”. And SBC found it for us.

Gentleman Walker “ See the gold chain round my neck”, he said. (Attached to it was a little bronze coin with raised decoration, quite unlike the Roman style). “It’s an early British Essex coin, found with my metal detector”. Was it a good salute to the past to be handsome enough to be worn in the 21st century? Or should it have been in a museum for all to see? Fortunately we didn’t have to decide.

Almost AWOL Sunny Sunday afternoon, Trimontium Exhibition. Bus parked (unusual) outside. Supervisor looks up and down Square. Roman soldier figure outside door -gone. Instinct says ‘Board bus’ (now filling w. well-oiled golfers). Soldier there, in well of bus, spear askew. Chorus of ‘Leave him there. He’s peyd ’s fare’. Back on duty, spear up. Phew! Saved from ambush just in time.

Grannus Mews Visit to Musselburgh for July exhibition (opened by our own Lord Cameron) re Roman Inveresk, to which we loaned Roman soldier (on leave this time) and replica shield. Fraser Hunter at lecture mentions altar to combined gods of healing - Apollo (Roman) & Grannus (native). Drive past group of select houses with name ‘Grannus Mews’. What a daring Community Council/Authority!

Ala Australis The Aussies were back again with Prof David Kennedy of Univ. of West Australia, this time as a paid-up cavalry wing. Leaderfoot-Newstead march; Exhibition visit; coffee; Eildon climb? 6 out of 17 make it - Up Top from Down Under. Then - off to Arbeia.

In the Frame The ground at road level in front of the 1928 Trimontium Stone has been given by the Trust a neatly-bedded edging of ancient kerbstones enclosing 0.5 ton red chips to remove the puddles & complete the setting Malcolm Crawford kitted-out there as Roman soldier, orating for the 20th time on Melrose Festival Saturday morning. No doubt training new son Finlay to succeed in due course. At Dorricott wedding hailed Jenni & Martine, one-time young weekend supervisors in early Exhibition days.

Pontius Pilate - the Scots connection.
We have reprinted a little 8-page leaflet by Lawrence Keppie and Susan Bryson (80p) which draws the stories together, including the basic legend that PP was born in Fortingall, Glenlyon, W of Aberfeldy. In the 17th cent. a French officer complained that the Scots soldiers, to be ‘on the right of the line’, must have been senior enough to have served as PP’s bodyguard; to which they replied that if they had been on guard at the Sepulchre they wouldn’t have slept (which the French were accused of doing) and let the Holy Body go. The Royal Scots have a painting in Edinburgh Castle showing them on parade with an equestrian Duke-of-Wellington-looking PP, the ranks wearing sporrans, greaves, berets etc.

Melrose Abbey (Trumpet 18, p 19) Splendid conference on MA on 13 Sept. The statues above the great E window not James V and his Queen nor the Coronation of the Virgin - MA handbook- but The Trinity, with the Holy Spirit as Dove gone missing between the two male figures at head level. Great stuff!

Apostrophe Anonymous phone call : “Your Walk sign. Any educated person should know the Viaduct is the Walks’ [ie plural] High Spot”. Our reply notice: “ The Trimontium Walk’s, yes Walk’s a singular (every Thurs) experience”.

From David Jones For ‘Latin aloud’ lovers; getting in all the 12 sing. & plur case endings in Motor Bus by A D GODLEY

What is this that roareth thus?
Can it be a Motor Bus?
Yes, the smell and hideous hum
Indicat Motorem Bum . ( object sing.)
Implet in the Corn & High } The terror of
Terror me Motoris Bi :} the MB fills me..
Bo Motori clamitabo}I shall shout to MB
Ne Motore caedar a Bo}in case I’m slain
Dative be or Ablative to/for....by,with,from
So thou only let us live: { case endings
Whither shall thy victims flee?
Spare us, spare us, Motor Be! (vocative)
Thus I sang; and still anigh
Came in hordes Motores Bi, (subject plur)
Et complebat omne forum}& there filled
Copia Motorum Borum.}the f,. plenty MBs
How shall wrteches live like us
Cincti Bis Motoribus? surrounded by MBs
Domine, defende nos Lord, defend us
Contra hos Motores Bos! against these...

Thurs 17 March Prof W G Manning - ‘Curle’s Ironwork Finds: an overview’

Thurs 7 April Dr Birgitta Hoffman - ‘The Newstead Glasswork: overview’

Thurs 21 April Dr Carol van Driel Murray - ‘The Newstead Leatherwork: overview’

All three lecturers are producing monographs on these subjects, one hundred years after the finds, under the auspices of the National Museums of Scotland.

Saturday 11 June OU ‘Frontier Day’, Corn Exchange, open 9am onwards for coffee etc, start 10am. Prof Keppie, Dr Fraser Hunter on Roman Frontier and Caledonians and Romans. Charge £3.
Attendees find lunch in Melrose. Afternoon, site-only Walk, leaving N’stead Milestone 1.30pm and 2.00pm; back to Village Hall 3.00pm and 3.30pm for tea. Trust members free; OU students and others £2. Booking form for this Day, and Events, enclosed w. Trumpet

Nov 3 Dr Freeman on ‘Haverfield’
Nov 10 G S Maxwell on ‘Richmond’
Nov 17 Dr Reid & Hon Sec ‘My Dear Haverfield: the Curle correspondence’.
These dates stand to be confirmed later.

2. Events
Saturday 7 May 1.30pm meet at St Mary’s School entrance by the Greenyards for a Curle Circuit of Melrose visiting Abbey Park (birthplace), Rosebank (grandfather’s, till 1845), The Bow (office), Melrose Abbey SE corner (family tombstones), Harmony (last home). Walk to his Millmount Farm via Annay Road (comfort stop in Newstead, if necessary) and Middle Walk to Priorwood (family home), now Youth Hostel. Follow his Walk to the office through his (now NTS) Priorwood Garden and after passing through door into Abbey Street, with ‘JC 1905 BC’ carved-stone lintel [James Curle & Blanche Curle], gather for tea (donation please) in Corn Exchange about 4.30pm.
It is hoped to have a leaflet available and a short explanation, if knowledgeable speakers are free, at each stop. Please book in advance - see form.

Saturday 16 July Annual outing, this time to the Gask Ridge watchtowers in Perthshire, now regarded as the first Roman frontier in Scotland. (We went to Loch Tay some three years ago). Details have still to be arranged but an expression of interest, on the form, would be appreciated.

Saturday 3 September Trimontium site Safari, on the lines of the Safari in 2000.
We have the last three information boards to ‘unveil’ formally, plus the timber tower on the Leaderfoot Viaduct Embankment.
The plan would be to meet, as before, at the East end of Newstead, by the Millennium Milestone, unveil ‘The Eildons’ board beside the little green bus shelter, and proceed by the ‘Roman road’ aka the Broomhill track, round the site anti-clockwise this time, with dramatic interludes at the stops. We look forward to Grant Lees leading us, as in 2000, in ‘How Horatius kept the (Old Drygrange) Bridge in the brave days of old’. (When he comes to ‘and summoned his array’ we want a loud audience response of ‘Hurray’). Once across the bridge (for us H. doesn’t hack it down) it’s up the hill to the Roman Stone Summerhouse, or temple to Jupiter Pluvius, if you prefer it. We would hope by that time to have completed its renovation. Thereafter - tea by courtesy of Grange Hall Nursing Home, as before. We would hope to have the event advertised as part of Scottish Archaeology Month (and therefore free). Donations to help pay for tea, however, would be perfectly acceptable. Book again

3.Publications
Dr Lonie has already written for The Scottish Naturalist, vol 116, 2004, pp3-28 - the national journal of Scottish natural history, to which he has contributed over the years - an article entitled ‘Roman Dere Street over the River Tweed: from St Boswells Burn to the Clackmae Burn’.

The Trust has received a supply of reprints via the Editor, Dr Gibson, and has issued them, under the Trust’s logo and with new green covers, as a 28-page A4 Report. Any member wishing a copy should contact the Hon Sec. It is a compilation of many years’ work and the two hand-wrought maps of the line are a work of art and dedication in themselves. His work on Dere Street in Broomhill Plantation will be continued and published in due course.

Permission has been received from the Trustees of the Haverfield Bequest in Oxford to publish the 20 or so letters from James Curle to Prof Haverfield during the 1905-10 dig. It is hoped to arrange this with Drs Freeman and Bishop. There are also interesting letters from Curle and others on the same topic in Edinburgh University and in the British Museum.

There will be a further report to members

Extract from Prof. Richmond’s Memoir of James Curle
PSAS vol 78 pp145-149

“...James Curle and his brother came...to work with Sir George Macdonald and formed with him the Big Three of Scottish Archaeology. It may fairly be said that in the hands of that trio the study of ancient Scotland first became a comparative science, wherein all learning and all possibilities were ransacked for every item of information which could shed light upon local and immediate phenomena. It would, indeed, be difficult to estimate how much the work of each owed to the others, so intimate were their exchanges of views and so frequent their contacts; and it is no detraction to the two Curles to say that the standard in industry and breadth of learning was set by Sir George, who showed the whole world how first-class scholarship and humane learning could be combined with a busy administrator’s life. Together, the three were to go from strength to strength, until the study of Roman Scotland in particular took entirely new shape in their hands.

James Curle’s share in the work was of particular significance and distinction, and it was a matter of peculiar good fortune that it should have found a field of activity at his very doorstep.

Curle’s major distinction - of the Antonine (2nd century) and Flavian (1st century) strata - enabled him to furnish Scottish archaeology for the first time with a great range of relics easily divisible between the two epochs, and so to lay the foundations for a typology (study of the types) of Roman objects found in Scotland. In this respect he was a pioneer. The study of Samian ware (one type is ‘Curle11’ Ed) and of certain types of coarse ware was firmly based for the first time in the history of a Romano-British site. His discussion was marked and illumined throughout with an astonishing grasp of the comparative material, and by a broad humanity wholly lacking in the Continental works upon which it drew”.