Britain's Ancient Tracks - Deer Path

Good morning!  Today Tony Robinson is heading to the borderlands.  He is tracing the Great Road North that was built by the Roman Empire in Britain.  They constructed thousands of miles of roads in Britain.  These roads connected settlements and forts.  Tony is walking a pathway called the Deer Road. The run time for this episode is 46:10.

Tony begins his walk in Northumberland.  He is visiting Hadrian’s Wall.  It was at the time the most Northeastern part of England.  It divided safe and sable Brittania from the barbarian tribes.  The wall was only part of the protection against the barbarians.  There was a series of forts that helped defend Roman Britain.  Tony visits a site that is an active archeological site.  This site demonstrates that not only soldiers lived in these forts but there were also women and children.  He meets with one of the archeologists on site and talks about a shoe that was discovered on site.  Perhaps this pair of shoes belonged to someone who walked along Deer Street.  It even still has a smell to it.  Tony talks about the other discoveries made and thoroughly enjoys his time at this site.  Although he could spend all day at the site, Tony has to move on.  I think we may be overdue for an update from Tony about this site.

As he walks along the wall, he sees other structures on site.  What are these structures?  Tony talks with Lindsay Allason-Jones.  A series of gates called mar castles allowed people to go back and forth.  This challenges the assumption that Hadrian’s Wall was something to stop people from coming through.  Tony is one of these people who are traveling through the wall.  Eventually, he came to a milestone that was left behind by the Romans.  He heads to the Otterburn Ranges, a military range in Britain.  He has been given permission to take the Deer Road through to the range.  Then he has a short talk about William Wallace and the Scots' defeat in this area.  At the end of day one he takes in the night sky.  It is one of Britain’s protected areas to view the night sky.

Tony continues north and towards Scotland.  Although many people use Carter Bar to cross over the border he goes a few miles east.  Here he meets Ian Crofton, a fellow walker, and together they talk about the border.  In the landscape, there looks to be some settlements along the border.  Together they make their way to the border and talk about how the borders between England and Scotland were created.  Tony crosses the border and continues to follow the Deer Way.
He comes across a massive Iron Age hill fort alongside Deer Street.  So why was this Roman road built alongside the fort?  Here he meets Fraser Hunter and they discuss the Caledonians.  Tony is looking to dig deeper as to who the Caledonians were.  He and Fraser also talk about how Deer Street was still used even after the Romans left.  The Romans built excellent roads.

The Romans like Tony march on and deeper into Scotland.  Tony talks about the legions that would have marched into Scotland and the Caledonian region.  The Romans would have used local stone and hunted in local forests.  It seems like this was a thrill for Tony.  Eventually Tony meets a former shepherd who is working to restore an ancient landscape.  The view from this old sheep pen was spectacular.  This former shepherd and others like him planted thousands of trees.  They studied ancient pollen and peat samples to determine what to plant.  The landscape was transformed over twenty years.  Where else does Tony go on this Roman road?  What else does he learn about the Romans?  Tune into the rest of the episode to find out more.

I rather enjoyed Tony’s narration during this episode, he had a great deal of humor and curiosity during this episode.  I think he rather enjoyed his tour of Fats Lips Castle.  It was rather surprising to see that the Romans did end up so far north in Scotland.  I would show this to a Roman section in history class.  I would show the clip from the former shepherd to an ecology class.