Main content

Hadrian's Wall

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Hadrian's Wall, the best known and perhaps most impressive relic of the Roman occupation of Britain.

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Hadrian's Wall, the largest Roman structure and one of the most important archaeological monuments in Britain. Stretching for eighty miles from the mouth of the River Tyne to the Solway Firth and classified today as a World Heritage Site, it has been a source of fascination ever since it came into existence. It was built in about 122 AD by the Emperor Hadrian, and a substantial part of it still survives today. Although its construction must have entailed huge cost and labour, the Romans abandoned it within twenty years, deciding to build the Antonine Wall further north instead. Even after more than a century of excavations, many mysteries still surround Hadrian's Wall, including its exact purpose. Did it have a meaningful defensive role or was it mainly a powerful emperor's vanity project?

With:

Greg Woolf
Professor of Ancient History at the University of St Andrews

David Breeze
Former Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments for Scotland and Visiting Professor of Archaeology at the University of Durham

Lindsay Allason-Jones
Former Reader in Roman Material Culture at the University of Newcastle

Producer: Victoria Brignell.

Available now

42 minutes

Last on

Thu 12 Jul 2012 21:30

Broadcasts

  • Thu 12 Jul 2012 09:00
  • Thu 12 Jul 2012 21:30

Featured in...

In Our Time podcasts

Download programmes from the huge In Our Time archive.

The In Our Time Listeners' Top 10

If you鈥檙e new to In Our Time, this is a good place to start.

Arts and Ideas podcast

Download the best of Radio 3's Free Thinking programme.

Podcast