Hadrian’s Wall

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?

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Greg Woolf 8 episodes
  Professor of Ancient History at the University of St Andrews
• David Breeze No other episodes
  Former Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments for Scotland and Visiting Professor of Archaeology at the University of Durham
• Lindsay Allason-Jones No other episodes
  Former Reader in Roman Material Culture at the University of Newcastle

Related episodes

• The Great Wall of China
  
  4 May, 2010 950 History of Asia
• Roman Britain
  
  1 May, 2003 930 History of the Ancient World
• Megaliths
  
  2 Mar, 2023 930 History of the Ancient World
• Byzantium
  
  19 Jul, 2001 940 History of Europe
• Angkor Wat
  
  23 Jun, 2022 950 History of Asia
• Battle of the Teutoburg Forest
  
  13 Feb, 2020 930 History of the Ancient World
• The Aeneid
  
  21 Apr, 2005 870 Latin and Italic literatures
• The Roman Empire’s Collapse in the 5th century
  
  18 Mar, 2004 930 History of the Ancient World
• Edward Gibbon
  
  17 Jun, 2021 900 History
• The Celts
  
  21 Feb, 2002 930 History of the Ancient World
• Rome and European Civilization
  
  20 Dec, 2001 930 History of the Ancient World
• The Venerable Bede
  
  25 Nov, 2004 270 History of Christianity
• Archaeology and Imperialism
  
  14 Apr, 2005 930 History of the Ancient World
• The Rosetta Stone
  
  11 Feb, 2021 930 History of the Ancient World
• Hannibal
  
  11 Oct, 2012 930 History of the Ancient World
• The Geological Formation of Britain
  
  22 Oct, 2009 550 Earth sciences and geology
• Architecture and Power
  
  31 Oct, 2002 720 Architecture
• The Hittites
  
  23 Dec, 2021 930 History of the Ancient World
• Constantine the Great
  
  5 Oct, 2017 930 History of the Ancient World
• Vitruvius and De Architectura
  
  15 Mar, 2012 720 Architecture

---

Programme ID: b01kkr42

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01kkr42

Auto-category: 930.1 (Ancient history of Europe)