Frontiers of the Roman Empire: Hadrian's Wall - UNESCO World Heritage Site

Hey everyone, I'm Joel on the Road, and today my UNESCO World Heritage Journey is at the frontiers of the Roman Empire, Hadrian's Wall in Northern England. Hadrian's Wall is an enormous Roman fortification that runs the entire breadth of Northern England. It runs from the North Sea in the east to the Irish Sea in the west, 73 miles. The wall is 3 metres tall in places, and it's a metre thick. It was constructed in the 1st century AD by the Emperor Hadrian. In addition to the wall itself, there are also 16 garrison forts along the length of the wall, and this is one of them, Vercovichium. There were 800 soldiers stationed here, and they had all of the comforts they would need for their stay away from home, like a hospital and a bathhouse. It's just so easy to empathise with the soldiers that must have been stationed out here. This was the end of the known world, and these people were from as far away as Syria and Palestine, and just bringing someone from that part of the world all the way up here, it must have been incredibly tough. This is the entrance to the fort of Vindolanda, which is located just south of Hadrian's Wall, and it actually predates the wall. You need to remember that Hadrian's Wall was actually constructed 80 years into the Roman occupation. This was a much larger fort than the one we saw this morning, and it would have housed almost 1,000 soldiers. Apart from the massive fortress here, the really cool thing is that there's actually an active excavation happening here. For the six months over summer every year, a team of volunteers and archaeologists come here and they start digging, and last year they found thousands of objects, shoes, coins, belts, all that kind of stuff. It's really cool. They reckon it'll take another 100 years before they're finished. Now although this is just a replica of a section of the wall, it really drives home what an amazing and monumental achievement its construction was. But that's it from me, thank you very much for watching, don't forget to like and subscribe. I'm Joel on the Road, and I'll see you at the next World Heritage Site!