Wallsend is the most thoroughly excavated and, more importantly, most completely published auxiliary fort on the line of Hadrian's Wall. Over the last few decades several major volumes have appeared (by Hodgson, in 2003; by Rushworth and Croom, publishing the 1975–81 excavations by Charles Daniels, in 2016; and by Bidwell, in 2018), and this book is a worthy addition to this corpus. The discovery, or rather, rediscovery of the fort bath-house in 2014, and the subsequent excavation of the site as a community archaeology project under the banner of ‘WallQuest’, is a riveting archaeological detective story. WallQuest was established in order to undertake community-based archaeological research on the easternmost 30 miles of Hadrian's Wall and was funded through a patchwork of grants.
The bath-house was first observed in 1814 during the building of a coal staith, and the site was subsequently lost to view. Hodgson carefully navigates the conflicting antiquarian accounts, which had resulted in a ‘general awareness’ of the approximate position of the site. The demolition of the Ship Inn in 2013 prompted the WallQuest volunteers to do cartographic research, which confirmed that the site of the demolished pub was a strong candidate for that of the bath-house. Trial trenching through 4 m depth of industrial debris on the site resulted in the discovery of the lost Roman facility in 2014, exactly two centuries after it had first been seen and recorded.
The bulk of the volume is the detailed excavation report, which is prefaced by an introduction to Roman baths, with glossary, and a summary of other fort bath-houses on Hadrian's Wall. These, as has long been recognised, conform to a standard original Hadrianic plan, though the ways in which this was later amended varies from site to site. Although only a relatively small area of the building was excavated, due to the constraints of its depth below ground, this was sufficiently diagnostic for Hodgson astutely to recognise another example of this original Hadrianic plan to add to the five already known. The rooms exposed are confidently identified, and the probable complete plan extrapolated, with a convincing analysis of the metrological scheme. Importantly, Hodgson sees the aqueduct found some years ago passing through Hadrian's Wall from the north-west (reported in Bidwell's 2018 report on Hadrian's Wall at Wallsend) as the source of water supply for the bath-house, suggesting that the fort, Hadrianic narrow Wall and bath-house were planned together as an ‘integrated whole’.
Two structural phases were identified of which the second, dated to the third century, is a reduced version of the Hadrianic scheme, with a somewhat different circulation pattern. It is suggested that the rebuild was necessitated by a landslip, as the building was situated some distance from the fort, close to the river's edge. Abandonment appears to have occurred in the late third or early fourth century, but extensive damage did not take place until the ‘ruthless reduction’ of the building during its discovery in 1814. This might also account for the relative paucity of finds, including ceramic building materials, but those that were recovered are published in detail.
The structural report is meticulously presented, with a wealth of detailed excavation photography, essential to an appreciation of the text, along with very clear plans and reconstruction drawings. The final discussion section is wide ranging and demonstrates Hodgson's unrivalled understanding of Roman Wallsend.
