Housesteads, Northumberland

In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Housesteads like this:

HOUSESTEADS, a station on the Roman wall, in Northumberland; 3 miles N of Bardon Mill r. station, and 5½ NE of Haltwhistle. It is the most remarkable of all the stations; retains extensive and interesting portions of its original Roman work; was visited by a large excursion party, from the British Association meeting at Newcastle, in 1863; and is called by Stukely the "Tadmor, " by. ...

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Bruce the "Pompeii, " of Britain It was the Borcovicus of the Romans, and was garrisoned by the Tungrian cohort. It occupies a lofty ridge with a wide view on the E, the S, and the W; contains an area of nearly 5 acres; id in the form of a parallelogram, rounded at the corners, and extending from E to W; and has the wall on the N, while the vallum probably ran along the S. It shows an indication, in projecting beyond the wall's line, of having been constructed prior to the wall; it had natural defences on all sides except the W; and it was defended, on that side, by a triple line of ramparts. A number of suburban houses have left vestiges exterior to its S side; its own wall, on that side, still stands ten or twelve courses high; two principal streets traverse its interior, crossing each other at right angles; the W gate retains its strong, central gate post, and has also, in a ruined state, each of its guard chambers; the intersecting point of the two principal streets retains a large square base of a pillar; and the entire station, besides having yielded numerous interesting relics which have been carried away, exhibits a surprising amount at once of solid masonry, of broken columns, and of fragments of mill stones and pottery.

Housesteads through time

Housesteads is now part of NORTHUMBERLAND Unitary Authority. Click here for graphs and data of how NORTHUMBERLAND has changed over two centuries. For statistics about Housesteads itself, go to Statistics.

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