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European Adventure 2017
A brilliant sky greeted us again as we headed towards Chesters Roman Fort and Hadrian's wall. What an amazing structure and all the forts and associated buildings that the Roman's build. They were so ahead of their time. Hadrian was a Roman Emperor who during a visit to the area in AD122 decided that a wall needed to be built to mark the northern part of their conquered land and to keep the Scots out. It was built over six years from AD122 to 128 and is 73 miles long stretching from the west to the east coasts (the shortest distance across the UK). The Romans built 16 forts along it the remains of which can be seen today. Each one housed 800 soldiers and had its own prison, hospital and bakery. They also had bath houses, and latrines with flushing water! After Chesters Fort we moved along the wall to Housesteads Fort which is the most complete of the ruins and there is a small part which you are able to walk on, which we did. The rest of the wall you can only walk beside to help preserve it. We couldn't help marvel at the way the Romans lived and the way that the soldiers were looked after. As we headed further west we came close to where the Armstrong Clan had their stronghold and so Geoff and I headed off to see what we could find. My father being an Armstrong, and I joined the Clan many years ago. Mum had told me about Langholm and the museum there dedicated to the Armstrongs and there was also a Tower which belonged to Johnnie Armstrong. Good old 'Google' directed us to the Tower known as Hollows Tower or more recently as Gilnockie Tower and as we drove up the drive there was a group of four people there and one was wearing the distinctive Armstrong tartan kilt. We thought he must have been something to do with the site but he was a Canadian Armstrong coming to pay homage! And boy was he excited when he knew there was a Kiwi Armstrong there as well! He had organised a tour through 'our' tower so we stayed to join in. It was great fun and we learned a lot. The Armstrongs were border raiders or 'reivers' who spent a great deal of their time plundering other villages goods and chattels and returning with as many cattle as they could. That was the way life was in those days and fires were lit to send the alarm that a raiding party was heading their way. Any raiding party was greeted by what was collected from the toilet in leather buckets tossed from the roof of the tower! If, despite that they got close enough to the Tower they lit fires under the closed door and tried to smoke the occupants out. Cattle were on the ground floor and the people were on the floors above. A ladder was retracted to keep them safe upstairs. The Armstrongs were loyal to the Scottish King and got their name because one of them (before he was known as Armstrong obviously) rescued the King when his horse was killed from under him, by picking him up one handed and lifting him into his own horse. For that he was named Strong Arm and given land. The rest is history as they say. Lidka and Leicester by now were on the ferry heading back from the Isle of Mann and were due to meet up with their friends Dawn and Vince in Dumfries, who very kindly offered the four of us accommodation there as well as Lidka and Leicester. We did take them up on their offer of parking up the vans for the night and had a fantastic night of laughs and fun and good company. The next morning the four of us left the Wilson's there to catch up with Dawn and Vince and we headed off up the west coast of Scotland
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