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A couple more from West Pit and this is a JS climbing one of the half dozen lines to the tipping area for the spoil.
My typical window driving shot (at the stoplight - quick one) and I def need to upgrade my camera... I was thinking the D600 which is more in my budget and less mega pixels than the other... I'm truly aware it's mostly the operator and not the equipment... I'm Not ranting Just sliding! :)
Looks ok L
Rear close up looking particularly prim and proper, showing the padlock through uniform zip and two metal rings which prevent this maid removing her uniform. She would be too afraid to go out dressed as she is, so she is trapped in the house. She cannot revolt and leave so has no choice but to meekly and humbly obey her Mistress' every instruction to the letter. Answering back or failing to comply would bring disciplinary action and if she should fail to submit to that then it would be instant dismissal and ejection from Mistress' house dressed as she is, penniless, homeless, still locked in chastity and in uniform, voluminous petticoat, no possessions, not even a tissue to wipe her tears away.
With such a threat hanging over her, sissy barbie always chooses to submit to whatever form of discipline her Mistress has decided to inflict on her.
I love the feeling of belonging to Mistress Lady Penelope, being helpless and at her mercy.
24/7 live in maid sissy barbie property of Mistress Lady Penelope wearing a satin uniform in her Mistress' favourite shade of red. It is important to a maid to please her Mistress in everything she does, wearing Mistress' favourite colour makes barbie extra happy.
If you are interested in maid training, look at Mistress Lady Penelope's excellent free web site
You can make an appointment with Mistress Lady Penelope by calling 07970183024
further practise. removed the tacking from the under collar, back neck facing, front facing and sleeves. then cut out another undercollar, attached it to the back neck facing and machined both to the blazer neckline, continuing on to the front facing
critique
for the photo i should have opened the collar down to where the first button is to be positioned. never mind, next time
the collar, lapel and front are machined but still have to be edge stitched. that's for another day, as are the making of the button holes and covering the buttons in the same fabric.
happier with the collar and lapel though the angles are still not quite symmetrical.
hoping i don't mess up when i edge stitch.
reset and machined the sleeves to lose the puckering on the shoulder.
the hemming of the front, back and sleeves has not been done. i'll only do that on the actual blazer
tomorrow i'll prepare the green linen for the actual blazer
i'm following the classic blazer pattern downloaded from this reference book flic.kr/p/2q55djV
'the dressmaking book' by alison smith mbe publisher dk
alongside the reference book i use you tube tutorials that i search for when more explanation is needed
How to Sew Darts | Beginner & Advanced www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9x-i-txyfo
5 Tips on how sew non-pointy darts! www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8M_TLn_do4
How to Sew an Invisible Zipper
www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaza9t-CAiQ
How to Sew an Invisible Zipper - Updated
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG8CSr11kjA
How To Sew Invisible Zipper On Shirt / Dress | Sewing Technique Tutorial
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHNrRoCSxaE
Invisible Zipper
www.youtube.com/shorts/npDSSAMzNNc
Super clever invisible zip trick
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UyfKL5G-Bw
how to understitch www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFz4tsplENI
what is understitching?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnRDeKqKgto
ten top stitching tips www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDRXfYgkU4k
Top and Dress
Detailed Sewing Tutorial For A Beginner : Simple Linen Top, Bias Binding Neckline【Free Pattern】
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cFiT8UcU54
Download the Pattern
www.madebysachi.com/2021/09/27/super-simple-top/
LINEN DRESS DIY【Free Pattern +Easy Draft】Step by Step Guide for Beginner /back opening /Skirt Pleats
www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDFRlF_yEtA&t=0s
Download the Pattern
www.madebysachi.com/2021/09/27/super-simple-top/
BASIC SEAM POCKET
www.madebysachi.com/2022/07/09/basic-seam-pocket/
How to Sew Pleats | Box Pleat, Knife Pleat, Inverted Box Pleat
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRlHcPh38MY
Forming Box Pleats
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNXJ_BIsb1E
Inverted Pleat
www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfdE3DlJdFQ
setting the sleeve www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nqo-SIy8MXY&t=178s
coat pattern instructions www.sewmag.co.uk/free-sewing-patterns/serena-wool-coat#lo...
How to properly sew a shawl collar jacket/sewing techniques for beginners www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjeqgIfSt9c
Easy Way To Sewing shawl collar | Coat Collar Tutorial Cutting and Stitching | Sewing Tutorial www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsUZjA9JErI
my sewing machine JL220 flic.kr/p/2odruLA from john lewis www.johnlewis.com/john-lewis-jl220-sewing-machine-pepperm...
sewing machine maintenance flic.kr/p/2q9GVTh
How to Use your SEWING MACHINE (for Beginners)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmaZBTMzkoY
A Beginners' Guide To Using Your Sewing Machine
www.youtube.com/watch?v=imryOl_LNaw
Beginners Sewing Course - Day 1 - The Basics
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGITrkYdjJs
Seam Finishes
10 SEAM FINISHES Without a Serger || Basic to Couture
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYt7JxC_bIc&t=596s
7 Seam Types and How to Make it- Sewing Lesson for Beginner
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax6JDDP_6O8
French Seam Pockets
How to Add Pockets to a Side Seam using French Seams
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aatWJL_aAYY
Lining
How to add lining to ANY dress pattern | Sewing Tutorial
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENKI3fSBQBo
How To Sew a Slip Stitch by Hand
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjky55Cp1_I
Buttonholes
3 Sewing Tips to Make Buttonholes Neatly and Quickly
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oOz28Ybk8I
How to Machine-Sew and Custom-sized Buttonhole
www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6P-TKK3tjg&t=135s
Place and Sew Hooks and Eyes Correctly
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d06GhQx_Wg
How to Fix a Low Neckline
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U-W6W5fh-4
Interfacing
How to fuse iron-on interfacing to fabric
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7idVbAkUBTU
reference books
i'm a complete beginner at dressmaking. posting photos of progress to encourage myself to continue www.flickr.com/photos/connect2012/albums/72177720305370633/ i'm not making any recommendations ...
© 2010 khairy.ms
copyrights for all these photos in this Photostream are owned by Khairy M.Shaban, These Photos shall not be or copied unless the permission is obtained from the Photographer
Photo by
خيري محمد شعبان
khairy Mohamed shaban
khairy.ms@gmail.com.
your Facal Hair Edda calls to me
Feminization Challenge 1
Shave your whole Body and get rid of your hair.
Use Bodylotion for softer and smoother skin.
That was the entire phone call; the rest was in person.
PLEASE DO NOT FAVE WITHOUT LEAVING A COMMENT. THANK YOU.
IF YOU DO, MY PHOTOS WILL BE REMOVED FROM YOUR FAVES AND/OR YOU WILL BE BLOCKED
During a previous holiday, we visited many areas in Somerset and Devon and during one of those trips we happened to find the rural village of Exford, at the centre of Exmoor National Park. On the River Exe, at the heart of Exmoor National Park, Exford has an attractive village green surrounded by shops, restaurants and hotels. It is a busy walking, fishing and equine centre.
This is another example of the quaint cottages in the village and is on the main road through the village. It has an unusual window, which was what caught my eye.
Taken with my Canon EOS 7D and Canon EF 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens and framed in Photoshop.
Better viewed in light box - click on the image or press 'L' on your keyboard.
Some of the tens (or hundreds) of thousands of "love locks" on the Pont de l'Archevêché (Archbishop's Bridge) which crosses the Seine river near Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France. The locks were scheduled to be removed by Parisian authorities in the summer of 2015 due to the damage caused to the bridge by the weight of the locks.
40168 heads away from Maghull in a Walton Junction to Ormskirk engineering possession on Sunday 27th May 1984.
The train is sat on the down line, is fully loaded and on its way wrong road to Aintree to continue over the North Mersey Branch.
The loco only lasted until November that year, when it was withdrawn due to power unit failure and was scrapped two years later at Crewe Works.
New as SN57DDY to Lothian Buses. Refurbished, reregistered as MXZ1757 and reliveried and transferred to Lothian Motorcoaches. Then transferred to Lothian Country Buses with the addition of a green surround to the destination screen. Now with East Coast Buses with the green surround having been removed.
I cannot be certain with the identification of this plant, but the color of the flowers and the form of the leaves is consistent with the popular hybrid Correa "Dusky Bells". The genus Correa has around a dozen species, but there are many subspecies, hybrids and cultivars. Correa plants are one of those unassuming, underrated shrubs: tough and hardy. They work well in public spaces where they receive little or no attention. Yet, they produce these charming flowers.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correa_(plant)
www.anbg.gov.au/gnp/interns-2007/correa-dusky-bells.html
[ Location - Barton, Australian Capital Territory, Australia ]
Photography notes ...
The photograph was taken using the following hardware configuration ...
(Year of manufacture indicated in braces where known.)
- Hasselblad 500C/M body (1994).
- Hasselblad CFV-50c Digital Back for Hasselblad V mount camera.
- Hasselblad Focusing Screen for the CFV-50c digital back, with focussing prism and crop markings.
- Hasselblad 45 Degree Viewfinder PME-45 42297 (2001).
- Hasselblad Carl Zeiss lens - Planar T* 80mm f2.8 CFE (2000).
- FotodioX B60 Lens Hood for Select Hasselblad Standard Length CF Lenses.
- Hasselblad Extension Tube 56E (56mm) for 200 and 500 Series - MFR # 30 40656.
I acquired the photograph (8272 x 6200 pixels) with an ISO of 100, exposure time of 1/125 seconds, and aperture of f/8.0
Post-processing ...
Finder - Removed the CF card from the camera digital back and placed it in a Lexar 25-in-1 USB card reader. Then used Finder on my MacBook Air to download the raw image file (3FR extension) from the card.
Lightroom - Imported the 3FR image.
Lightroom - Used the Map module to add the location details to the EXIF header.
Lightroom - Adjusted the white balance slightly.
Lightroom - Applied a square (1:1 aspect ratio) crop.
Lightroom - Applied various basic lighting and color adjustments in the Develop module. Increased the exposure, reduced the Highlights and Whites, added some Clarity, and decreased the Saturation. Also selectively decreased the Green saturation whilst increasing the Yellow, Orange and Red saturation
Lightroom - Saved the basic Develop module settings as preset 20160807-001.
Lightroom - Output the image as a JPEG image using the "Maximum" quality option (6200 x 6200 pixels).
PhotoSync - Copied the JPEG file to my iPad Mini for any final processing, review, enjoyment, and posting to social media.
I quilted the interior once and wasn't happy with it. So Jerry and I spent 2 weeks ripping it all back out and then I quilted it again. I like it SO much better now. :)
"Geese in the Forest" pattern by Twiddletails
If you like it, please:
My reference Blog: Andrea Costa
Facebook:Andrea Costa
Shoot with Canon EF-S 15-85mm + polarize filter.
Info photo:
Arizona - USA - Life style
Postprocessing RAW:-- level and saturation
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The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in the United States in the state of Arizona. It is largely contained within the Grand Canyon National Park, one of the first national parks in the United States. President Theodore Roosevelt was a major proponent of preservation of the Grand Canyon area, and visited it on numerous occasions to hunt and enjoy the scenery.
The Grand Canyon is 277 miles (446 km) long, up to 18 miles (29 km) wide and attains a depth of over a mile (1.83 km) (6000 feet).[1] Nearly two billion years of the Earth's geological history have been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layer after layer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted.[2] While the specific geologic processes and timing that formed the Grand Canyon are the subject of debate by geologists,[3] recent evidence suggests the Colorado River established its course through the canyon at least 17 million years ago.[4][5] Since that time, the Colorado River continued to erode and form the canyon to the point we see it at today.[6]
Before European immigration, the area was inhabited by Native Americans who built settlements within the canyon and its many caves. The Pueblo people considered the Grand Canyon ("Ongtupqa" in Hopi language) a holy site and made pilgrimages to it.[7] The first European known to have viewed the Grand Canyon was García López de Cárdenas from Spain, who arrived in 1540.[8]
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Il Grand Canyon è un'immensa gola creata dal fiume Colorado nell'Arizona settentrionale. È lungo 446 chilometri circa, profondo fino a 1.600 metri e con una larghezza variabile dai 500 metri ai 27 chilometri. Per la maggior parte è incluso nel parco nazionale del Grand Canyon, uno dei primi parchi nazionali degli Stati Uniti. Il presidente Theodore Roosevelt amava molto l'area del Grand Canyon e la visitò diverse volte, per andare a caccia di puma ed ammirare il paesaggio.
Quasi due miliardi di anni della storia della Terra sono emersi alla luce grazie all'azione del Colorado e dei suoi affluenti, che in milioni di anni hanno eroso strato dopo strato di sedimenti, e grazie al sollevamento del Colorado Plateau.
Il primo europeo a vedere il Grand Canyon fu lo spagnolo García López de Cárdenas nel 1540 che partì dal Nuovo Messico alla ricerca del misterioso fiume di cui parlavano gli indiani Hopi. La prima spedizione scientifica verso il canyon fu guidata dal maggiore statunitense John Wesley Powell alla fine degli anni '70 del XIX secolo. Powell descrisse le rocce sedimentarie esposte nel canyon come "pagine di un grande libro di storia". Comunque, molto prima di queste scoperte, l'area era abitata da Nativi americani che costruirono insediamenti tra le pareti del canyon.
Andrea Costa Photography - © All rights reserved
fabric cut out ready to zigzag stitch the edges tomorrow and assemble. pattern details have been transferred using a terracotta thread. the masking tape is on the reverse side of the fabric and will be removed once the blazer is finished
my light shades are yellow and are throwing the colour of this olive green fabric making it look brown
i'm following the classic blazer pattern downloaded from this reference book flic.kr/p/2q55djV
'the dressmaking book' by alison smith mbe publisher dk
alongside the reference book i use you tube tutorials that i search for when more explanation is needed
Sewing a coat/jacket lining
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ils6xkQu2nI
Adding a Lining to an Unlined Coat Sew Along
www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4iNiib0_TA
How to Sew Jacket Lining
www.wikihow.com/Sew-Jacket-Lining
How to Sew Darts | Beginner & Advanced www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9x-i-txyfo
5 Tips on how sew non-pointy darts! www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8M_TLn_do4;
how to understitch www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFz4tsplENI
what is understitching?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnRDeKqKgto
ten top stitching tips www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDRXfYgkU4k
Buttonholes
3 Sewing Tips to Make Buttonholes Neatly and Quickly
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oOz28Ybk8I
How to Machine-Sew and Custom-sized Buttonhole
www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6P-TKK3tjg&t=135s
setting the sleeve www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nqo-SIy8MXY&t=178s
How to Sew an Invisible Zipper
www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaza9t-CAiQ
How to Sew an Invisible Zipper - Updated
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG8CSr11kjA
How To Sew Invisible Zipper On Shirt / Dress | Sewing Technique Tutorial
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHNrRoCSxaE
Invisible Zipper
www.youtube.com/shorts/npDSSAMzNNc
Super clever invisible zip trick
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UyfKL5G-Bw
Top and Dress
Detailed Sewing Tutorial For A Beginner : Simple Linen Top, Bias Binding Neckline【Free Pattern】
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cFiT8UcU54
Download the Pattern
www.madebysachi.com/2021/09/27/super-simple-top/
LINEN DRESS DIY【Free Pattern +Easy Draft】Step by Step Guide for Beginner /back opening /Skirt Pleats
www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDFRlF_yEtA&t=0s
Download the Pattern
www.madebysachi.com/2021/09/27/super-simple-top/
BASIC SEAM POCKET
www.madebysachi.com/2022/07/09/basic-seam-pocket/
How to Sew Pleats | Box Pleat, Knife Pleat, Inverted Box Pleat
www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRlHcPh38MY
Forming Box Pleats
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNXJ_BIsb1E
Inverted Pleat
www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfdE3DlJdFQ
coat pattern instructions www.sewmag.co.uk/free-sewing-patterns/serena-wool-coat#lo...
How to properly sew a shawl collar jacket/sewing techniques for beginners www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjeqgIfSt9c
Easy Way To Sewing shawl collar | Coat Collar Tutorial Cutting and Stitching | Sewing Tutorial www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsUZjA9JErI
my sewing machine JL220 flic.kr/p/2odruLA from john lewis www.johnlewis.com/john-lewis-jl220-sewing-machine-pepperm...
sewing machine maintenance flic.kr/p/2q9GVTh
How to Use your SEWING MACHINE (for Beginners)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmaZBTMzkoY
A Beginners' Guide To Using Your Sewing Machine
www.youtube.com/watch?v=imryOl_LNaw
Beginners Sewing Course - Day 1 - The Basics
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGITrkYdjJs
Seam Finishes
10 SEAM FINISHES Without a Serger || Basic to Couture
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYt7JxC_bIc&t=596s
7 Seam Types and How to Make it- Sewing Lesson for Beginner
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax6JDDP_6O8
French Seam Pockets
How to Add Pockets to a Side Seam using French Seams
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aatWJL_aAYY
Lining
How to add lining to ANY dress pattern | Sewing Tutorial
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENKI3fSBQBo
How To Sew a Slip Stitch by Hand
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjky55Cp1_Iwww.youtube.com/watch?v=_d06GhQx_Wg
How to Fix a Low Neckline
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U-W6W5fh-4
Interfacing
How to fuse iron-on interfacing to fabric
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7idVbAkUBTU
reference books
i'm a complete beginner at dressmaking. posting photos of progress to encourage myself to continue www.flickr.com/photos/connect2012/albums/72177720305370633/ i'm not making any recommendations ...
Besides Fred and the Shinny Man a few other ‘characters’ would drop over to the Lumpy Bikes shop and spend some time, I’d almost always pull out a camera to take their photograph. One man in particular had a very interesting ‘worn’ face and spoke in a ‘carny gee shucks’ kinda way. His name was John Knight. We remain friends. It turns out that the Shinny Man had stolen/borrowed/ John’s wife Yvonne of years earlier, so their was some bad blood between John and Wayne. Now, I was right in the middle of this, my thinking is the shop was just like one of those park benches that had been removed, it had become its own kinda social place, just like a café or a diner. Folk would gather and like lots of folk whiling away their time, talk would turn to gossip and gossip comes in many forms. So, many times I would hear John talk about “that guy there, isn’t he something, do you have any idea what he has in all those bags on his bike, why’s he got all that stuff, one time when I had a place on Park Street he asked me if he could store a bit of stuff there, just for a while, and well he brought stuff over, junk, it was all mostly junk, junk he had picked up in the bins or the side of the road, before you knew it the backyard was full of junk.” He rambled on about the Shinny man. It was so humorous as I had helped John with a move job one time, he actually hired my truck for twenty bucks to move some stuff he had inherited from this woman who had died in an apartment on Mcdonnell Street at the Aitkin Court places. I never seen such a smoke filled apartment, everything was stained from the nicotine, it reeked of tobacco, everything you touched had an oily tobacco film on it, I couldn’t get out of there quick enough. So we drive this truckload of stuff, knick knacks, a bed frame, a dresser some boxed stuff, what I thought was mostly junk, Johns kind of junk and took it over to John’s storage locker which was off of High Street part of a moving companies storage facility. John had a unit rented in the storage building, you had to go through about two wire fences, four doors and six locks to get to it and it was crammed already with other junk! John it turned out had his own ‘issues’ shall we say with collecting stuff, yet here he was, at my shop, at least twice a week telling me what a pack rat that Whiskers was. The two of them kept me on my toes as they were both known to have what they call in the trade as ‘light fingers.’
Their rivalry extended to unattended bikes in the city. One time a police from the city force came to the house to investigate where John had gotten a white mountain bike. I told the officer I had sold it to him which quelled the situation. It came out that The Shinny Man had told the cops that John had a stolen bike. When I saw John Knight he was purple with rage, “that dumb sonamabitch told the police I had a stolen bicycle and they came to my house asking me questions” frothed out of his mouth. Seems that John had found The Shinny Mans stash of bikes behind an apartment on Simcoe street and relocated a few of them to his own stash place behind Lee Ho’s Chinese restaurant on Aylmer street. When they tore down Lee Ho’s a few years later Wayne was all up in arms because the contractor had taken away a pile of six bikes that he had stashed there. They’d been there over two years, just rotting in the elements so to speak. These collectors achieved a degree of satisfaction by hoarding things, I believe the accumulation of things for them was more a type of bank account that gave them a good feeling. One time I was at the bins behind the library and I ran into Wayne the Shinny Man and asked him why he had some broken padlocks, he said to me, “you never know when you may need one.” Another time as I was going into Vinnies, the newly located St Vincent de Paul second hand store, I ran into John coming from the ReHab store across the street, in his hand he had six pairs of broken scissors in a yellow grocery store bag, I asked him why he needed so many pairs of old scissors, he said, “what a deal I got eh, only two dollars a pair.” He had this smile on his face, it was if he was temporarily stunned with happiness. At his government subsidized apartment on Rogers Street he had been warned not to bring to much stuff home. They were conducting bi-weekly inspections at his place and every month he would be told to clear some stuff out or face eviction, now that would be a problem cause old John, he had been on the waiting list for ten years before he got the place. In order to appease his tormentors he would toss out whatever they requested and start collecting again. He spent the better part of the day at the charity drop off bins scouring for interesting stuff, every day he would make the rounds of the three main second hand stores after starting his day by bicycling from his unit to the little restaurant on Romaine Street where he would sit near the front by the cash register his back against the wall so he could view the comings and goings. He let out the odd guffaw to the waitress and the regulars and have several refills in his cup of coffee, then begin his day of scrounging. He could do a days work and from time to time he would take a bit of work helping folk with yard chores and the like. Last summer he worked for a man that hired him to help remove some shingles and replace a roof on an island property, he said, “I was some sore after that job.” One time he helped me move some short four by four timbers that I had disassembled from the young lads sandbox when I realized it was no longer being used. John had four or so boards in his arms as one would carry fire wood when he stumbled and fell on the short step from the side yard in front of the wire dog run. He landed on his ankle and it was touch and go for a few days there for John’s ankle. On Saturdays John had a standing job at Jimmy Malakos’s Thurstons Restaurant a few blocks from our house on Lock Street. His chore was to fold the cardboard boxes that had been gathering over the week from deliveries, for this work John would get a free bacon and eggs feed with all the coffee he could drink. John has a way with words, I wish I could recall all his sayings, he would often say sarcastically, ‘ya figure’ in reference to some story or another. Another favourite phrase that I heard him use a dozen or more times is, “she wouldn’t look bad with a sack over her head.” Then there was the commonly used expression, “isn’t he a box of chocolates.”
As spring approaches I expect to see more of John at the shop, I could always count on him to bring bikes over to purchase accessories, especially front and rear carriers for them and those double splayed old fashioned kickstands. Last year his visits were fewer and further apart, he had purchased a lime green electric scooter which I would see him driving to his locations of interest. Oh, I suppose a man in his mid sixties is entitled to some lessening of exercise by this age, John took to the scooter like a duck to water, when I’d see him on it I always miss the smooth rhythm that one sees with folk riding bikes who aren’t in any particular hurry to get anywhere, sauntering so to speak. The scooter, well, it doesn’t saunter, it doesn’t seem to be saunter friendly. I wonder how an old rag and bones Sheeny like John could stop that expensive scooter at a red donation box and look indiscreet as he perused the contents perhaps purloining an article or two for his private collections. In the fall I ran into John, he had a long chin, somebody had stolen the batteries and battery holder from his scooter as it was parked below his unit at the project. Besides the battery stuff they also took the side mirrors and some other pieces of the scooter. Johns unit faced the Rotary Trail, it would not have been difficult for someone to climb the short fence at night and quietly remove the parts, flip them back over the fence and just walk away unnoticed. At the scooter shop called Green Street John priced the replacement parts, the total came to over $500, which it turns out was about what John had in the bank for emergencies, he bought the parts even though his same scooter had been on sale, brand new, the entire scooter for only $600 a few weeks earlier at the Walmart store, they didn’t have any left. When I saw him a few weeks later he was some happy, back in the saddle of his scooter which he had repaired for $500. From time to time John would ride shotgun with me as I went about the area picking up bikes from sellers, this is when it would get humorous, the way he spoke the words he chose, you could tell his phrases were well used, that he had been saying them for decades, you just don’t develop them one liners in an afternoon, “Holy Cow did you see her, he’s so cheap the lead in a pencil would be extracted if he thought he could get something for it, them damn owners of that place I have my coffee, I don’t go there when they’re there, they expect you to buy something and get pissed off that I just sit with my cup of coffee.” Being with John is fine entertainment.
2010 saw more blatant documentation of folk whom I would meet on the streets, I took in my opinion some classic photos of folk who many would not bother with, Lawrence Carnrite for one, he got out of jail, falsely accused of killing a man, an English tourist one night after one of the pubs closed, it may have been in the alley behind the Red Dog Tavern at least in that general area, when I saw Lawrence he was cleaned up, like no tomorrow, never seen him looking so good, he had a handful of small painted rocks that our friend the painter Randy Knott had given him to sell and he was offering them to passerby at the entrance to the No Frills store. Annette price came into the lens, I had noticed her mismatching of clothing colours, in her own way she reminded me of my sister Suzanne, I befriended her, one day Annette was at Brock and George Street heading south when I stopped her, and I am glad I did as she pulled out a necklace from under her coat that held at least a hundred Chrisitian charms, there was power in them charms. I won’t quickly forget going into the basement of that fancy Walkwell shoe store on George Street, Cliff Button the manager took me downstairs there before they closed up, I wonder if Cliff ever landed another job, that can be a hard thing, replacing a career when you are near the end of your good years. I look above me here at the computer and a wooden shoe tree from that basement is hooked up to a ceiling hook a souvenir from that shop. Carol Hannah, a user, at least she was back then was busking early one Sunday morning when I ran into big Brent Sisson looking real wonky at the corner of George and Simcoe Streets, that’s the heart of town George and Simcoe, his electric assist wheelchair would only run for ten feet then stall, then after a spell go another ten feet, I went to Our Space to get some help, it was early they weren’t open, there was Martha with the D.A.N.I.E.L. tattoo on her forehead hiding in the bushes at the old community garden and I asked her to come with me and I hooked her up with Brent and directed her to get him up to Our Space while I drove Big Brian home to Parkhill and Water because he couldn’t make it, he’d run out of steam. Turns out Brent was real sick, the Our Space people assessed him quickly and he got taken to the hospital where he went into the serious ward, oh, what do they call it, the Intensive Care Unit. I spoke with Carol Hannah and she said she had seen Brent sleeping in the bank foyer that night, the CIBC bank foyer. So I called the police and asked the chief at the time if any of his staff had seen Brent crashed in the bank overnight, and he got back to me and said, “none of our officers saw him” now you tell me, kindly how a four hundred pound man in an electric wheelchair wearing Hudsons Bay like blankets to stay warm can go unnoticed in a goddamn bank foyer on the busiest street in town. I would visit the hospital from time to time to visit Brent, the first time I visited he was out cold, ‘he’s in an induced coma his nurse told me’ I knew things were serious because he had one to one help, tubes protruded from his mouth, down his throat, into his arms, the entire back of the room looked like a space launch room, chock full of gauges and meters. Undeterred, I went back the following day and he had improved to the point he was conscious and could respond to my words by blinking his eyes and nodding. That day the nurse said, ‘he’s very sick still, he has an infection, the family are coming in from out of town’. I made him laugh, I asked if my friend Saint Carol Winter had been in to see him, ne nodded and let out a big grin, the biggest grin I ever saw, I knew Carol had been there every day since his hospitalization. The next day, I got a call from Carol, Brent was dead, the infection was too serious they could not save his life. Imagine the emotions of his family members having to make that kind of decision.
It turned out to be another year of tragedies, of short lives for some. My friend Ray Voyer one of my original street people characters died from a heart attack while living with his sister up in Bridgenorth. There was a wake for him at the Kayes Funeral Parlour on George Street. Old Fred and the Shinny Man were in attendance, I recall Fred talking loud while someone was speaking their eulogy, I nudged him in the ribs, Carol looked at me a bit aghast at the aroma emitting from Fred. Wayne the Shinny Man also sat with us, he would have heard there was going to be a lunch after the service. All of Ray’s three brothers were there and his sister Donna as well, they put on a nice display of family photos of Ray from his youth up till before he moved to skid row permanently. There was information on where he worked, what he did, when he got ill upstairs and they gave him some of that Jack Nicholson medicine, shock treatments, there was even a photograph of a young healthy Ray with a Harley or some other big motor cycle. I’ll never forget the time I was photographing Ray at one of the benches in Crary Park, he was coming down from a good binge, he didn’t know I had been taking pictures so I went up to him and gave him a $5 dollar bill, he looked at me and he said, “Charlie, you sure you can afford it, you’ve got kids to look after.” So we get to the snack portion of the funeral and here is Wayne the Shinny Man and Fred both stuffing their pockets with choice treats for later, Wayne caught my ear and he said, “there’s some real nice strawberry tarts on the table, have a couple.” He said it as if he was the maitre de` at a fancy hotel, his eyes were bulging out of the sockets with glee, as if he had struck it rich
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Other interesting characters continued to flow into my life as if there was a hole in the ships bowels. From the impetus of some of the 09 photos that interest in photographing those on the fringes grew and grew. I’d spend as much time as I could in the core of town looking for subjects and their stories, I found it interesting. I got to know folk much deeper once I stuck the camera in their faces, Marty the window washer was one such person, I worry for him as I have not seen him for some time. Every now and then someone would come over to the bike shop and I would capture their image, Ryan Bubbles Clapper is one such person, I think he’s doing a stretch these days. Celebrities would come over to purchase retro bikes or have their bikes repaired, famed swing style musician Catfish Willie was one of many who this little eclectic shop drew business from, and it is appreciated. Tommy Steele of the local band The Spades did a trade with me for some parts, the bike he left off was a cool retro looking affair that once housed a Zap brand electric motor before they had refined that technology to what it is today. My friend Hans Fishcher got that bike which he has since ‘pimped’ out to his liking.
Somehow I found out about a camp that men used to have a couple of pops at. It was located in the woods behind the Swiss Chalet and the Mini Town miniature golf place on Lansdowne Street. I was welcomed there one Saturday by old time acquaintance Tommy Boyle. Tommy was there that day sitting around the campfire with the camp boss, Norm Mccarrell, Chris, Bushey and another pair of guys who’s names I never did get, reluctantly they posed for a couple of photos, oh yeah Redman one of the Taylor boys from Curve Lake was also there that day. I had learned that the camp was, from time to time, a safe place to hide out as well as a good temporary living arrangement if one didn’t mind shitting in the woods. Besides the fire pit area there was a full kitchen set up outdoors Jamaican style with all the usual utensils, frying pans and pots, stacks of firewood, a midden for garbage such as cans and plastics. There was a large garage like structure covered in green tarps, inside that building there were some cots and bedding as well as coolers to keep the meat cold that had been scrounged from the toss outs of the grocery and away from the critters, the coyotes and coons who hung around by the train tracks. If ever I had witnessed a replica of a hoboes heaven this was it.
This young student was making a documentary on street people, her name was Victoria Scholes, I believe her uncle Wayne Eardley a local photographer/videographer introduced her to me and next thing you know she and I are touring the town and I have a roll to play as the introducer to folk on the fringes. We toured Fred Maybee’s house where he was tickled pink to be in the company of this young lady, he was rubbing his hands together, for me, that was a real tell tale moment in the study of Fred and it fit in with the mannerisms we had witnessed at our house when the young women were home. Victoria interviewed Marty the Window Washer and even Ken Taylor who is usually a very quiet fellow. Her film brought her/us some acclaim as it played at the local ReFrame film festival in 2012. I continue to chide her to help me with another project.
One afternoon we went to visit the camp, to meet Norm, but when we got there Norm was nowhere in sight. I must say we were intimidated as it was akin to trespassing going on to the grounds without an escort, even though we had permission to be there. We got up fairly close to the camp which was a good hundred yards from the tracks via a well worn path, past a forest of young trees. We were greeted by two large barking Rotweillers similar in size and demeanour to the dogs in that nasty horror flick The Exorcist from some years before. After a while I just yelled at the dogs to settle down and they did, at which point Victoria took some shots on her video camera. The dogs belonged to James Jenney and his partner who happened to be living at the camp that season, more on James later. When I was on a mission looking for missing people the first person I would call would be Norm, I knew that he would pass the word around that so and so was missing, for instance that rascal Bobby Teasdale would go on a hiatus and that would get all us do gooders tongues waggin that he had not been seen, so a casual search party would be put together and the word put out by Norm and his crew. Within a few days we would hear the good news, that Bobby was lying low for a spell at his sisters or a motel on the Highway arranged by the CMHA. In some places they call this type of connected communications ‘the coconut grapevine’.
Still generally speaking I had created this need to help people, you might say I got off on it, on helping out, out there on the streets. There were/are hired people who look after some of the individuals but their caseloads are such that they can’t cover all the ground. While carting Fred around to Our Space I got a good feel for those on the fringes and my intuitive nature provided clues to what areas of society these folk populated. For example, if a woman was a prostitute on the side, making a bit of change to buy, whatever, drugs, food, pampers I did not make judgment. If folks were involved in what I called the Oxycontin Economy so be it. In all of mankind’s time the law has always existed that if a need arises certain members of the tribe will fill the void. This law of nature extends from the very bottom of the social scale and goes right to the top of that scale to the high rollers and silver spooners, there is no economic group that does not have a need for providers. People are very adaptive to their circumstances. I was watching an old film, Chariots of Fire in which wealthy students embarking the train to take courses at Cambridge had their luggage carried to the transport by a poor porter, the porter is poor, but it is important to note that he is not a dimwit. Such a cast of characters was available for one to observe. I love them all.
Randy Reid is one such character, he is a short man who we would often see playing a guitar and singing a song at the greenspace where the bench had been removed by the front of the Chamber of Commerce. Every night at 7:30 Randy would be there. A friend passed on to me that Randy felt that if he kept playing there, night after night that sooner or later someone in the music industry would discover him and ask to help him cut a record. From time to time I converse with Randy, one time I ran into him under a big tree at Crary Park by the lake eating a pink coloured ice cream cone. It was an interesting sight, there was Randy, cross legged on the grass, it looked like all his worldly possessions were there with him, clothing, his familiar black leather jacket, some books, he had a couple of framed paintings hanging above him on the tree, that was his home.
Just by coincidence and the motion that was created by the Dark Hallways exhibit did I run into an excellent person to document. Daphne Molson Rogers was introduced to me by Bill Kimball an Arts involved person in the city. I was talking with Bill about Gerard Butler whom I wanted to learn more about, he suggested that Daphne would fit nicely into the work I was doing. I called her and made an appointment to photograph her at her home in Peterborough. This was a first for me, going to someones home to take photographs. This well spoken woman in her sixties, dressed in a black velvet dress answered the door and led me in to the parlour. The house was pretty cramped with a collection of books and a piano and the memories of a lifetime that we all have scattered here and there in our homes. She had made an attempt to showcase her accomplishments by placing a couple of her self published books on a side table along with some fake gold medals from some place or the other. I could see right off that she took great pride in the books and awards. I asked her to play piano for me, and she did, quite well in fact, one piece she played was a tribute to Mario Lemieux the hockey player whom she believed was dying of cancer. She would not listen to me when I told her he had overcome his illness and was quite well and living a great life. The piece she played was beautifully crafted and she played it with a good deal of finesse. If her keys were off, I would not have noticed, it was a private concert, just for me. Of course, the camera was clicking away. I don’t exactly recall but I may have taken upwards of a hundred shots, which is a lot in the hour or so I was there. Part way through this first meeting I asked Daphne if she had a veil and see through gloves, I just had this 1940’s feeling about her, as if her personality were more suited to a person from another era, a more costumed era, an era where there was royalty and I suppose a lot of this feeling was set off by her constant referral to counts and dukes and madames, in fact she called herself Madame Daphne Molson Rogers, though I believe this is without any official sanction. She retrieved the veil and gloves and sat at the right side of her couch, then sat back as if I was to make love to her. I held the camera up and took a few of the most incredible photos I have ever taken. We parted and this introductory meeting has been the catalyst for a deep and curious interest in her life and her art. Not only is Daphne a piano player, she is a multi media artist working in several different fields of art, including, poetry, drawing, photography and if I may say so I think she would make an excellent actor.
Throughout all of this tumult, I ran the Lumpy Bike shop from Spring till Winter. I met a cacophony of people including, Dorothy Groves, Carmine, Five Finger Freddy, Janet at Our Space, Murray, Doug Falconer, Rachelle, Jimson, James Jenney, Calvin, the Davidson Brothers Barry and Charlie, Ron Russell, Andre`, John Boothroyd, Jane, Nelly Michel and Lyn Miller, Abby Red Scooter and his wife Betty whom I photographed at their home. It was quite a busy year. But the person who I saw the most was Fred Maybee, he was up for adoption. He loved bikes, he would come over to buy used ball bearings. He was pretty thrifty!
Copyright © John G. Lidstone, all rights reserved.
It is an offence under law if you remove my copyright marking, or post this image anywhere else without my express written permission.
APC can be easily removed from the truck (add wheels/tracks and a few more parts and is ready to roll).
Copal-MXV Size 00 Leaf Shutter from a Yashica-Mat.
Japanese 6x6 TLR, produced c.1957
The Shutter Cocking Lever and its Spring removed.
At the moment I made this photo I still was not aware of the fact that its Screw had been broken and the rest of the screw was still in the Mechanism Plate (see red arrow) :-(
Grrrrrrrr........... !!
A word of WARNING :
I have now worked on 3 Copal-MXV shutters from Yashica TLR's and on ALL I experienced problems with trying to get out screws from the Mechanism Plate. So it is just impossible to remove for instance the Escapement or the Blades Drive Ring.
Tried if heating their heads with a soldering iron would help and/or a repeated WD40 treatment but most screws just did not want to budge :-(
When you exercise too much force the Screws get damaged quite easily just like in this case !
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WARNING :
This image is intended as a reference for the more experienced camera service man. If you have no experience in camera repair please do yourself a favor and send your camera to a professional service shop. It would be a pity to lose a vintage camera in a failed repair attempt !
I just found out about the Polaroid DSR Dust and Scratch removal tool. Does a decent job on removing the dust and some scratches from Black and White negatives. This is good since Digital ICE is not availabe and dust seems to be everywhere...
It appears I went a bit to far trying to get the water spots off of the negative. They were especially bad on this roll of film. It's weird what the PDSR did to the image around the scarf and shoulder when removing the dust and scratches.
Vindolanda was a Roman auxiliary fort (castrum) just south of Hadrian's Wall in northern England, which it originally pre-dated. Archaeological excavations of the site show it was under Roman occupation from roughly 85 AD to 370 AD. Located near the modern village of Bardon Mill in Northumberland, it guarded the Stanegate, the Roman road from the River Tyne to the Solway Firth. It is noted for the Vindolanda tablets, a set of wooden leaf-tablets that were, at the time of their discovery, the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain.
The first post-Roman record of the ruins at Vindolanda was made by the antiquarian William Camden, in his Britannia (1586). Occasional travellers reached the site over the next two hundred years, and the accounts they left predate much of the stone-stealing that has damaged the site. The military Thermae (bath-house) was still partly roofed when Christopher Hunter visited the site in 1702. In about 1715 an excise officer named John Warburton found an altar there, which he removed. In 1814 the first real archaeological work was begun, by the Rev. Anthony Hedley.
Hedley died in 1835, before writing up his discoveries. Little more was done for a long time, although in 1914 a workman found another altar at the site, set up by the civilians living at the fort in honour of the Divine House and Vulcan. Several names for the site are used in the early records, including "Chesters on Caudley", "Little Chesters", "The Bower" and "Chesterholm"; the altar found in 1914 confirmed that the Roman name for the site was "Vindolanda", which had been in dispute as one early source referred to it as "Vindolana".
The garrison consisted of infantry or cavalry auxilia, not components of Roman legions. From the early third century, this was the Cohors IV Gallorum equitata also known as the Fourth Cohort of Gauls. It had been presumed that this title was, by this time, purely nominal, with auxiliary troops being recruited locally but an inscription found in a recent season of excavations suggests that native Gauls were still to be found in the regiment and that they liked to distinguish themselves from British soldiers. The inscription reads:
CIVES GALLI
DE GALLIAE
CONCORDES
QUE BRITANNI
A translation of this is "The troops from Gaul dedicate this statue to the goddess Gallia with the full support of the British-born troops".
Among the troops were Basque-speaking soldiers of the Varduli.
The earliest Roman forts at Vindolanda were built of wood and turf. The remains are now buried as much as 13 ft (4 m) deep in the anoxic waterlogged soil. There are five timber forts, built (and demolished) one after the other. The first, a small fort, was probably built by the 1st Cohort of Tungrians about 85 AD. By about 95 AD this was replaced by a larger wooden fort built by the 9th Cohort of Batavians, a mixed infantry-cavalry unit of about 1,000 men. That fort was repaired in about 100 AD under the command of the Roman prefect Flavius Cerialis. When the 9th Cohort of Batavians left in 105 AD, their fort was demolished. The 1st Cohort of Tungrians returned to Vindolanda, built a larger wooden fort and remained here until Hadrian's Wall was built around 122 AD, when they moved, most likely to Vercovicium (Housesteads Roman Fort) on the wall, about two miles to the north-east of Vindolanda.
Soon after Hadrian's Wall was built, most of its men were moved north to the Antonine Wall. A stone fort was built at Vindolanda, possibly for the 2nd Cohort of Nervians. From 208 to 211 AD, there was a major rebellion against Rome in Britain, and the Emperor Septimius Severus led an army to Britain to cope with it personally. The old stone fort was demolished, and replaced by an unconventional set of army buildings on the west, and an unusual array of many round stone huts where the old fort had been. Some of these circular huts are visible by the north and the southwest walls of the final stone fort. The Roman army may have built these to accommodate families of British farmers in this unsettled period. Septimius Severus died at York in 211 AD; his sons paid off the rebels and left for Rome. The stone buildings were demolished, and a large new stone fort was built where the huts had been, for the 4th Cohort of Gauls.
A vicus, a self-governing village, developed to the west of the fort. The vicus contains several rows of buildings, each containing several one-room chambers. Most are not connected to the existing drainage system. The one that does was perhaps a butchery where, for health reasons, an efficient drain would have been important. A stone altar found in 1914 (and exhibited in the museum) proves that the settlement was officially a vicus and that it was named Vindolanda. To the south of the fort is a thermae (a large imperial bath complex), that would have been used by many of the individuals on the site. The later stone fort, and the adjoining village, remained in use until about 285 AD, when it was largely abandoned for unknown reasons.
About 300 AD, the fort was again rebuilt, but the vicus was not reoccupied, so most likely the area remained too unsafe for life outside the defended walls of the fort. In about 370, the fort was roughly repaired, perhaps by irregular soldiers. There is no evidence for the traditional view that Roman occupation ended suddenly in 410; it may have declined slowly.
In the 1930s, the house at Chesterholm where the museum is now located was purchased by archaeologist Eric Birley, who was interested in excavating the site. The excavations have been continued by his sons, Robin and Anthony, and his grandson, Andrew Birley, into the present day. They are undertaken each summer, and some of the archaeological deposits reach depths of six metres. The anoxic conditions at these depths have preserved thousands of artefacts, such as 850 ink tablets and over 160 boxwood combs, that normally disintegrate in the ground, thus providing an opportunity to gain a fuller understanding of Roman life – military and otherwise – on the northern frontier. The study of these ink tablets shows a literacy among both the high born who there, as with the party invitation from one officer's wife to another and with soldiers and their families who send care packages with notes on the contents of the packages. A study of spindle whorls from the north-western quadrant has indicated the presence of spinners of low- and high- status in the fort in the 3rd and 4th century AD. Along with ongoing excavations (in season) and excavated remains, a full-size replica of a section of Hadrian's Wall in both stone and turf can be seen on the site. As of yet there is no reconstruction of the Vallum.
Nearly 2000-year-old Roman boxing gloves were uncovered at Vindolanda in 2017 by the Vindolanda Trust experts led by Dr Andrew Birley. According to the Guardian, being similar in style and function to the full-hand modern boxing gloves, these two gloves found at Vindolanda look like leather bands and date back to 120 AD. It is suggested that, based on their difference from gladiator gloves, warriors using this type of gloves had no purpose to kill each other. These gloves were probably used in a sport for promoting fighting skills. The gloves are currently displayed at Vindolanda's museum. According to Birley, they are not part of a matching pair:
The larger of the two gloves is cut from a single piece of leather and was folded into a pouch configuration, the extending leather at each side were slotted into one another forming a complete oval shape creating an inner hole into which a hand could still easily be inserted. The glove was packed with natural material acting as a shock absorber.
Recent excavations have been accompanied by new archaeological methodologies. 3-D imaging has been used to investigate the use of an ox cranium in target practice.
In 2021, a carved sandstone artifact was discovered a few inches below the floor of the fort. It depicts a nude warrior or deity before a horse or similar animal. Early interpretations point to the figure being of a Roman deity, perhaps of Mars or Mercury.
In 2023 February, a 2,000 year-old disembodied 6.3 inches long wooden phallus toy was revealed, according to the research published in the journal Antiquity.
In addition to the older initial findings of ink tablets, shoes and combs, several more artifacts and discoveries of note have been covered by the media. In 2017, the British newspaper The Guardian focused on a discovery of cavalry barracks that were uncovered during the excavation season that held a large number of artifacts including swords, ink tablets, textiles, arrowheads, and other military paraphernalia. Relative dating of the barracks had determined that they were built around 105 AD. The Guardian also publicized the discovery of a cache of 25 ink tablets found earlier in the 2017 season. The tablets were discovered in a trench in one of the earliest layers of the fort, dating to the 1st century AD. This discovery was considered to be the second-largest discovery of ink tablets in the world, with the first being a cache that was also discovered at Vindolanda in 1992.
In the 2014 excavation season, BBC ran a story about the discovery of one of the few surviving examples of a wooden toilet seat to be found in the Roman Empire. In the same year, they also recorded the discovery of the only (very old, very worn) gold coin ever to be found on the site with a mint date of 64 or 65 AD, lying in a site layer dating to the 4th century AD.
In 2010, the BBC announced the discovery of the remains of a child between the ages of 8 and 10 years, which was uncovered in a shallow pit in a barrack room in a position suggesting that its arms may have been bound. Further archaeological analysis indicated that it could be female. She is believed to have died about 1,800 years ago.
Another find publicised on the BBC website in 2006 was a bronze and silver fibula modelled with the figure of Mars, with the name Quintus Sollonius punched into its surface.
In 2020, archaeologists discovered a 5th-century chalice covered in religious iconography within a collapsed church structure. The images include crosses, angels, a smiling priestly figure holding a crook, fish, a whale, ships, the Greek letters chi-rho. In addition, the chalice bears scripts written in Latin, Greek, and possibly Ogham.
The Vindolanda site museum, also known as Chesterholm Museum, conserves and displays finds from the site. The museum is set in gardens, which include full-sized reconstructions of a Roman temple, a Roman shop, a Roman house and Northumbrian croft, all with audio presentations. Exhibits include Roman boots, shoes, armour, jewellery and coins, infrared photographs of the writing tablets and, from 2011, a small selection of the tablets themselves, on loan from the British Museum. 2011 saw the reopening of the museum at Vindolanda, and also the Roman Army Museum at Magnae Carvetiorum (Carvoran), refurbished with a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Roman Britain was the territory that became the Roman province of Britannia after the Roman conquest of Britain, consisting of a large part of the island of Great Britain. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410.
Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 55 and 54 BC as part of his Gallic Wars. According to Caesar, the Britons had been overrun or culturally assimilated by the Belgae during the British Iron Age and had been aiding Caesar's enemies. The Belgae were the only Celtic tribe to cross the sea into Britain, for to all other Celtic tribes this land was unknown. He received tribute, installed the friendly king Mandubracius over the Trinovantes, and returned to Gaul. Planned invasions under Augustus were called off in 34, 27, and 25 BC. In 40 AD, Caligula assembled 200,000 men at the Channel on the continent, only to have them gather seashells (musculi) according to Suetonius, perhaps as a symbolic gesture to proclaim Caligula's victory over the sea. Three years later, Claudius directed four legions to invade Britain and restore the exiled king Verica over the Atrebates. The Romans defeated the Catuvellauni, and then organized their conquests as the province of Britain. By 47 AD, the Romans held the lands southeast of the Fosse Way. Control over Wales was delayed by reverses and the effects of Boudica's uprising, but the Romans expanded steadily northward.
The conquest of Britain continued under command of Gnaeus Julius Agricola (77–84), who expanded the Roman Empire as far as Caledonia. In mid-84 AD, Agricola faced the armies of the Caledonians, led by Calgacus, at the Battle of Mons Graupius. Battle casualties were estimated by Tacitus to be upwards of 10,000 on the Caledonian side and about 360 on the Roman side. The bloodbath at Mons Graupius concluded the forty-year conquest of Britain, a period that possibly saw between 100,000 and 250,000 Britons killed. In the context of pre-industrial warfare and of a total population of Britain of c. 2 million, these are very high figures.
Under the 2nd-century emperors Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, two walls were built to defend the Roman province from the Caledonians, whose realms in the Scottish Highlands were never controlled. Around 197 AD, the Severan Reforms divided Britain into two provinces: Britannia Superior and Britannia Inferior. During the Diocletian Reforms, at the end of the 3rd century, Britannia was divided into four provinces under the direction of a vicarius, who administered the Diocese of the Britains. A fifth province, Valentia, is attested in the later 4th century. For much of the later period of the Roman occupation, Britannia was subject to barbarian invasions and often came under the control of imperial usurpers and imperial pretenders. The final Roman withdrawal from Britain occurred around 410; the native kingdoms are considered to have formed Sub-Roman Britain after that.
Following the conquest of the Britons, a distinctive Romano-British culture emerged as the Romans introduced improved agriculture, urban planning, industrial production, and architecture. The Roman goddess Britannia became the female personification of Britain. After the initial invasions, Roman historians generally only mention Britain in passing. Thus, most present knowledge derives from archaeological investigations and occasional epigraphic evidence lauding the Britannic achievements of an emperor. Roman citizens settled in Britain from many parts of the Empire.
History
Britain was known to the Classical world. The Greeks, the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians traded for Cornish tin in the 4th century BC. The Greeks referred to the Cassiterides, or "tin islands", and placed them near the west coast of Europe. The Carthaginian sailor Himilco is said to have visited the island in the 6th or 5th century BC and the Greek explorer Pytheas in the 4th. It was regarded as a place of mystery, with some writers refusing to believe it existed.
The first direct Roman contact was when Julius Caesar undertook two expeditions in 55 and 54 BC, as part of his conquest of Gaul, believing the Britons were helping the Gallic resistance. The first expedition was more a reconnaissance than a full invasion and gained a foothold on the coast of Kent but was unable to advance further because of storm damage to the ships and a lack of cavalry. Despite the military failure, it was a political success, with the Roman Senate declaring a 20-day public holiday in Rome to honour the unprecedented achievement of obtaining hostages from Britain and defeating Belgic tribes on returning to the continent.
The second invasion involved a substantially larger force and Caesar coerced or invited many of the native Celtic tribes to pay tribute and give hostages in return for peace. A friendly local king, Mandubracius, was installed, and his rival, Cassivellaunus, was brought to terms. Hostages were taken, but historians disagree over whether any tribute was paid after Caesar returned to Gaul.
Caesar conquered no territory and left no troops behind, but he established clients and brought Britain into Rome's sphere of influence. Augustus planned invasions in 34, 27 and 25 BC, but circumstances were never favourable, and the relationship between Britain and Rome settled into one of diplomacy and trade. Strabo, writing late in Augustus's reign, claimed that taxes on trade brought in more annual revenue than any conquest could. Archaeology shows that there was an increase in imported luxury goods in southeastern Britain. Strabo also mentions British kings who sent embassies to Augustus, and Augustus's own Res Gestae refers to two British kings he received as refugees. When some of Tiberius's ships were carried to Britain in a storm during his campaigns in Germany in 16 AD, they came back with tales of monsters.
Rome appears to have encouraged a balance of power in southern Britain, supporting two powerful kingdoms: the Catuvellauni, ruled by the descendants of Tasciovanus, and the Atrebates, ruled by the descendants of Commius. This policy was followed until 39 or 40 AD, when Caligula received an exiled member of the Catuvellaunian dynasty and planned an invasion of Britain that collapsed in farcical circumstances before it left Gaul. When Claudius successfully invaded in 43 AD, it was in aid of another fugitive British ruler, Verica of the Atrebates.
Roman invasion
The invasion force in 43 AD was led by Aulus Plautius,[26] but it is unclear how many legions were sent. The Legio II Augusta, commanded by future emperor Vespasian, was the only one directly attested to have taken part. The Legio IX Hispana, the XIV Gemina (later styled Martia Victrix) and the XX (later styled Valeria Victrix) are known to have served during the Boudican Revolt of 60/61, and were probably there since the initial invasion. This is not certain because the Roman army was flexible, with units being moved around whenever necessary. The IX Hispana may have been permanently stationed, with records showing it at Eboracum (York) in 71 and on a building inscription there dated 108, before being destroyed in the east of the Empire, possibly during the Bar Kokhba revolt.
The invasion was delayed by a troop mutiny until an imperial freedman persuaded them to overcome their fear of crossing the Ocean and campaigning beyond the limits of the known world. They sailed in three divisions, and probably landed at Richborough in Kent; at least part of the force may have landed near Fishbourne, West Sussex.
The Catuvellauni and their allies were defeated in two battles: the first, assuming a Richborough landing, on the river Medway, the second on the river Thames. One of their leaders, Togodumnus, was killed, but his brother Caratacus survived to continue resistance elsewhere. Plautius halted at the Thames and sent for Claudius, who arrived with reinforcements, including artillery and elephants, for the final march to the Catuvellaunian capital, Camulodunum (Colchester). Vespasian subdued the southwest, Cogidubnus was set up as a friendly king of several territories, and treaties were made with tribes outside direct Roman control.
Establishment of Roman rule
After capturing the south of the island, the Romans turned their attention to what is now Wales. The Silures, Ordovices and Deceangli remained implacably opposed to the invaders and for the first few decades were the focus of Roman military attention, despite occasional minor revolts among Roman allies like the Brigantes and the Iceni. The Silures were led by Caratacus, and he carried out an effective guerrilla campaign against Governor Publius Ostorius Scapula. Finally, in 51, Ostorius lured Caratacus into a set-piece battle and defeated him. The British leader sought refuge among the Brigantes, but their queen, Cartimandua, proved her loyalty by surrendering him to the Romans. He was brought as a captive to Rome, where a dignified speech he made during Claudius's triumph persuaded the emperor to spare his life. The Silures were still not pacified, and Cartimandua's ex-husband Venutius replaced Caratacus as the most prominent leader of British resistance.
On Nero's accession, Roman Britain extended as far north as Lindum. Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, the conqueror of Mauretania (modern day Algeria and Morocco), then became governor of Britain, and in 60 and 61 he moved against Mona (Anglesey) to settle accounts with Druidism once and for all. Paulinus led his army across the Menai Strait and massacred the Druids and burnt their sacred groves.
While Paulinus was campaigning in Mona, the southeast of Britain rose in revolt under the leadership of Boudica. She was the widow of the recently deceased king of the Iceni, Prasutagus. The Roman historian Tacitus reports that Prasutagus had left a will leaving half his kingdom to Nero in the hope that the remainder would be left untouched. He was wrong. When his will was enforced, Rome[clarification needed] responded by violently seizing the tribe's lands in full. Boudica protested. In consequence, Rome[clarification needed] punished her and her daughters by flogging and rape. In response, the Iceni, joined by the Trinovantes, destroyed the Roman colony at Camulodunum (Colchester) and routed the part of the IXth Legion that was sent to relieve it. Paulinus rode to London (then called Londinium), the rebels' next target, but concluded it could not be defended. Abandoned, it was destroyed, as was Verulamium (St. Albans). Between seventy and eighty thousand people are said to have been killed in the three cities. But Paulinus regrouped with two of the three legions still available to him, chose a battlefield, and, despite being outnumbered by more than twenty to one, defeated the rebels in the Battle of Watling Street. Boudica died not long afterwards, by self-administered poison or by illness. During this time, the Emperor Nero considered withdrawing Roman forces from Britain altogether.
There was further turmoil in 69, the "Year of the Four Emperors". As civil war raged in Rome, weak governors were unable to control the legions in Britain, and Venutius of the Brigantes seized his chance. The Romans had previously defended Cartimandua against him, but this time were unable to do so. Cartimandua was evacuated, and Venutius was left in control of the north of the country. After Vespasian secured the empire, his first two appointments as governor, Quintus Petillius Cerialis and Sextus Julius Frontinus, took on the task of subduing the Brigantes and Silures respectively.[38] Frontinus extended Roman rule to all of South Wales, and initiated exploitation of the mineral resources, such as the gold mines at Dolaucothi.
In the following years, the Romans conquered more of the island, increasing the size of Roman Britain. Governor Gnaeus Julius Agricola, father-in-law to the historian Tacitus, conquered the Ordovices in 78. With the XX Valeria Victrix legion, Agricola defeated the Caledonians in 84 at the Battle of Mons Graupius, in north-east Scotland. This was the high-water mark of Roman territory in Britain: shortly after his victory, Agricola was recalled from Britain back to Rome, and the Romans initially retired to a more defensible line along the Forth–Clyde isthmus, freeing soldiers badly needed along other frontiers.
For much of the history of Roman Britain, a large number of soldiers were garrisoned on the island. This required that the emperor station a trusted senior man as governor of the province. As a result, many future emperors served as governors or legates in this province, including Vespasian, Pertinax, and Gordian I.
Roman military organisation in the north
In 84 AD
In 84 AD
In 155 AD
In 155 AD
Hadrian's Wall, and Antonine Wall
There is no historical source describing the decades that followed Agricola's recall. Even the name of his replacement is unknown. Archaeology has shown that some Roman forts south of the Forth–Clyde isthmus were rebuilt and enlarged; others appear to have been abandoned. By 87 the frontier had been consolidated on the Stanegate. Roman coins and pottery have been found circulating at native settlement sites in the Scottish Lowlands in the years before 100, indicating growing Romanisation. Some of the most important sources for this era are the writing tablets from the fort at Vindolanda in Northumberland, mostly dating to 90–110. These tablets provide evidence for the operation of a Roman fort at the edge of the Roman Empire, where officers' wives maintained polite society while merchants, hauliers and military personnel kept the fort operational and supplied.
Around 105 there appears to have been a serious setback at the hands of the tribes of the Picts: several Roman forts were destroyed by fire, with human remains and damaged armour at Trimontium (at modern Newstead, in SE Scotland) indicating hostilities at least at that site.[citation needed] There is also circumstantial evidence that auxiliary reinforcements were sent from Germany, and an unnamed British war of the period is mentioned on the gravestone of a tribune of Cyrene. Trajan's Dacian Wars may have led to troop reductions in the area or even total withdrawal followed by slighting of the forts by the Picts rather than an unrecorded military defeat. The Romans were also in the habit of destroying their own forts during an orderly withdrawal, in order to deny resources to an enemy. In either case, the frontier probably moved south to the line of the Stanegate at the Solway–Tyne isthmus around this time.
A new crisis occurred at the beginning of Hadrian's reign): a rising in the north which was suppressed by Quintus Pompeius Falco. When Hadrian reached Britannia on his famous tour of the Roman provinces around 120, he directed an extensive defensive wall, known to posterity as Hadrian's Wall, to be built close to the line of the Stanegate frontier. Hadrian appointed Aulus Platorius Nepos as governor to undertake this work who brought the Legio VI Victrix legion with him from Germania Inferior. This replaced the famous Legio IX Hispana, whose disappearance has been much discussed. Archaeology indicates considerable political instability in Scotland during the first half of the 2nd century, and the shifting frontier at this time should be seen in this context.
In the reign of Antoninus Pius (138–161) the Hadrianic border was briefly extended north to the Forth–Clyde isthmus, where the Antonine Wall was built around 142 following the military reoccupation of the Scottish lowlands by a new governor, Quintus Lollius Urbicus.
The first Antonine occupation of Scotland ended as a result of a further crisis in 155–157, when the Brigantes revolted. With limited options to despatch reinforcements, the Romans moved their troops south, and this rising was suppressed by Governor Gnaeus Julius Verus. Within a year the Antonine Wall was recaptured, but by 163 or 164 it was abandoned. The second occupation was probably connected with Antoninus's undertakings to protect the Votadini or his pride in enlarging the empire, since the retreat to the Hadrianic frontier occurred not long after his death when a more objective strategic assessment of the benefits of the Antonine Wall could be made. The Romans did not entirely withdraw from Scotland at this time: the large fort at Newstead was maintained along with seven smaller outposts until at least 180.
During the twenty-year period following the reversion of the frontier to Hadrian's Wall in 163/4, Rome was concerned with continental issues, primarily problems in the Danubian provinces. Increasing numbers of hoards of buried coins in Britain at this time indicate that peace was not entirely achieved. Sufficient Roman silver has been found in Scotland to suggest more than ordinary trade, and it is likely that the Romans were reinforcing treaty agreements by paying tribute to their implacable enemies, the Picts.
In 175, a large force of Sarmatian cavalry, consisting of 5,500 men, arrived in Britannia, probably to reinforce troops fighting unrecorded uprisings. In 180, Hadrian's Wall was breached by the Picts and the commanding officer or governor was killed there in what Cassius Dio described as the most serious war of the reign of Commodus. Ulpius Marcellus was sent as replacement governor and by 184 he had won a new peace, only to be faced with a mutiny from his own troops. Unhappy with Marcellus's strictness, they tried to elect a legate named Priscus as usurper governor; he refused, but Marcellus was lucky to leave the province alive. The Roman army in Britannia continued its insubordination: they sent a delegation of 1,500 to Rome to demand the execution of Tigidius Perennis, a Praetorian prefect who they felt had earlier wronged them by posting lowly equites to legate ranks in Britannia. Commodus met the party outside Rome and agreed to have Perennis killed, but this only made them feel more secure in their mutiny.
The future emperor Pertinax (lived 126–193) was sent to Britannia to quell the mutiny and was initially successful in regaining control, but a riot broke out among the troops. Pertinax was attacked and left for dead, and asked to be recalled to Rome, where he briefly succeeded Commodus as emperor in 192.
3rd century
The death of Commodus put into motion a series of events which eventually led to civil war. Following the short reign of Pertinax, several rivals for the emperorship emerged, including Septimius Severus and Clodius Albinus. The latter was the new governor of Britannia, and had seemingly won the natives over after their earlier rebellions; he also controlled three legions, making him a potentially significant claimant. His sometime rival Severus promised him the title of Caesar in return for Albinus's support against Pescennius Niger in the east. Once Niger was neutralised, Severus turned on his ally in Britannia; it is likely that Albinus saw he would be the next target and was already preparing for war.
Albinus crossed to Gaul in 195, where the provinces were also sympathetic to him, and set up at Lugdunum. Severus arrived in February 196, and the ensuing battle was decisive. Albinus came close to victory, but Severus's reinforcements won the day, and the British governor committed suicide. Severus soon purged Albinus's sympathisers and perhaps confiscated large tracts of land in Britain as punishment. Albinus had demonstrated the major problem posed by Roman Britain. In order to maintain security, the province required the presence of three legions, but command of these forces provided an ideal power base for ambitious rivals. Deploying those legions elsewhere would strip the island of its garrison, leaving the province defenceless against uprisings by the native Celtic tribes and against invasion by the Picts and Scots.
The traditional view is that northern Britain descended into anarchy during Albinus's absence. Cassius Dio records that the new Governor, Virius Lupus, was obliged to buy peace from a fractious northern tribe known as the Maeatae. The succession of militarily distinguished governors who were subsequently appointed suggests that enemies of Rome were posing a difficult challenge, and Lucius Alfenus Senecio's report to Rome in 207 describes barbarians "rebelling, over-running the land, taking loot and creating destruction". In order to rebel, of course, one must be a subject – the Maeatae clearly did not consider themselves such. Senecio requested either reinforcements or an Imperial expedition, and Severus chose the latter, despite being 62 years old. Archaeological evidence shows that Senecio had been rebuilding the defences of Hadrian's Wall and the forts beyond it, and Severus's arrival in Britain prompted the enemy tribes to sue for peace immediately. The emperor had not come all that way to leave without a victory, and it is likely that he wished to provide his teenage sons Caracalla and Geta with first-hand experience of controlling a hostile barbarian land.
Northern campaigns, 208–211
An invasion of Caledonia led by Severus and probably numbering around 20,000 troops moved north in 208 or 209, crossing the Wall and passing through eastern Scotland on a route similar to that used by Agricola. Harried by punishing guerrilla raids by the northern tribes and slowed by an unforgiving terrain, Severus was unable to meet the Caledonians on a battlefield. The emperor's forces pushed north as far as the River Tay, but little appears to have been achieved by the invasion, as peace treaties were signed with the Caledonians. By 210 Severus had returned to York, and the frontier had once again become Hadrian's Wall. He assumed the title Britannicus but the title meant little with regard to the unconquered north, which clearly remained outside the authority of the Empire. Almost immediately, another northern tribe, the Maeatae, went to war. Caracalla left with a punitive expedition, but by the following year his ailing father had died and he and his brother left the province to press their claim to the throne.
As one of his last acts, Severus tried to solve the problem of powerful and rebellious governors in Britain by dividing the province into Britannia Superior and Britannia Inferior. This kept the potential for rebellion in check for almost a century. Historical sources provide little information on the following decades, a period known as the Long Peace. Even so, the number of buried hoards found from this period rises, suggesting continuing unrest. A string of forts were built along the coast of southern Britain to control piracy; and over the following hundred years they increased in number, becoming the Saxon Shore Forts.
During the middle of the 3rd century, the Roman Empire was convulsed by barbarian invasions, rebellions and new imperial pretenders. Britannia apparently avoided these troubles, but increasing inflation had its economic effect. In 259 a so-called Gallic Empire was established when Postumus rebelled against Gallienus. Britannia was part of this until 274 when Aurelian reunited the empire.
Around the year 280, a half-British officer named Bonosus was in command of the Roman's Rhenish fleet when the Germans managed to burn it at anchor. To avoid punishment, he proclaimed himself emperor at Colonia Agrippina (Cologne) but was crushed by Marcus Aurelius Probus. Soon afterwards, an unnamed governor of one of the British provinces also attempted an uprising. Probus put it down by sending irregular troops of Vandals and Burgundians across the Channel.
The Carausian Revolt led to a short-lived Britannic Empire from 286 to 296. Carausius was a Menapian naval commander of the Britannic fleet; he revolted upon learning of a death sentence ordered by the emperor Maximian on charges of having abetted Frankish and Saxon pirates and having embezzled recovered treasure. He consolidated control over all the provinces of Britain and some of northern Gaul while Maximian dealt with other uprisings. An invasion in 288 failed to unseat him and an uneasy peace ensued, with Carausius issuing coins and inviting official recognition. In 293, the junior emperor Constantius Chlorus launched a second offensive, besieging the rebel port of Gesoriacum (Boulogne-sur-Mer) by land and sea. After it fell, Constantius attacked Carausius's other Gallic holdings and Frankish allies and Carausius was usurped by his treasurer, Allectus. Julius Asclepiodotus landed an invasion fleet near Southampton and defeated Allectus in a land battle.
Diocletian's reforms
As part of Diocletian's reforms, the provinces of Roman Britain were organized as a diocese governed by a vicarius under a praetorian prefect who, from 318 to 331, was Junius Bassus who was based at Augusta Treverorum (Trier).
The vicarius was based at Londinium as the principal city of the diocese. Londinium and Eboracum continued as provincial capitals and the territory was divided up into smaller provinces for administrative efficiency.
Civilian and military authority of a province was no longer exercised by one official and the governor was stripped of military command which was handed over to the Dux Britanniarum by 314. The governor of a province assumed more financial duties (the procurators of the Treasury ministry were slowly phased out in the first three decades of the 4th century). The Dux was commander of the troops of the Northern Region, primarily along Hadrian's Wall and his responsibilities included protection of the frontier. He had significant autonomy due in part to the distance from his superiors.
The tasks of the vicarius were to control and coordinate the activities of governors; monitor but not interfere with the daily functioning of the Treasury and Crown Estates, which had their own administrative infrastructure; and act as the regional quartermaster-general of the armed forces. In short, as the sole civilian official with superior authority, he had general oversight of the administration, as well as direct control, while not absolute, over governors who were part of the prefecture; the other two fiscal departments were not.
The early-4th-century Verona List, the late-4th-century work of Sextus Rufus, and the early-5th-century List of Offices and work of Polemius Silvius all list four provinces by some variation of the names Britannia I, Britannia II, Maxima Caesariensis, and Flavia Caesariensis; all of these seem to have initially been directed by a governor (praeses) of equestrian rank. The 5th-century sources list a fifth province named Valentia and give its governor and Maxima's a consular rank. Ammianus mentions Valentia as well, describing its creation by Count Theodosius in 369 after the quelling of the Great Conspiracy. Ammianus considered it a re-creation of a formerly lost province, leading some to think there had been an earlier fifth province under another name (may be the enigmatic "Vespasiana"), and leading others to place Valentia beyond Hadrian's Wall, in the territory abandoned south of the Antonine Wall.
Reconstructions of the provinces and provincial capitals during this period partially rely on ecclesiastical records. On the assumption that the early bishoprics mimicked the imperial hierarchy, scholars use the list of bishops for the 314 Council of Arles. The list is patently corrupt: the British delegation is given as including a Bishop "Eborius" of Eboracum and two bishops "from Londinium" (one de civitate Londinensi and the other de civitate colonia Londinensium). The error is variously emended: Bishop Ussher proposed Colonia, Selden Col. or Colon. Camalodun., and Spelman Colonia Cameloduni (all various names of Colchester); Gale and Bingham offered colonia Lindi and Henry Colonia Lindum (both Lincoln); and Bishop Stillingfleet and Francis Thackeray read it as a scribal error of Civ. Col. Londin. for an original Civ. Col. Leg. II (Caerleon). On the basis of the Verona List, the priest and deacon who accompanied the bishops in some manuscripts are ascribed to the fourth province.
In the 12th century, Gerald of Wales described the supposedly metropolitan sees of the early British church established by the legendary SS Fagan and "Duvian". He placed Britannia Prima in Wales and western England with its capital at "Urbs Legionum" (Caerleon); Britannia Secunda in Kent and southern England with its capital at "Dorobernia" (Canterbury); Flavia in Mercia and central England with its capital at "Lundonia" (London); "Maximia" in northern England with its capital at Eboracum (York); and Valentia in "Albania which is now Scotland" with its capital at St Andrews. Modern scholars generally dispute the last: some place Valentia at or beyond Hadrian's Wall but St Andrews is beyond even the Antonine Wall and Gerald seems to have simply been supporting the antiquity of its church for political reasons.
A common modern reconstruction places the consular province of Maxima at Londinium, on the basis of its status as the seat of the diocesan vicarius; places Prima in the west according to Gerald's traditional account but moves its capital to Corinium of the Dobunni (Cirencester) on the basis of an artifact recovered there referring to Lucius Septimius, a provincial rector; places Flavia north of Maxima, with its capital placed at Lindum Colonia (Lincoln) to match one emendation of the bishops list from Arles;[d] and places Secunda in the north with its capital at Eboracum (York). Valentia is placed variously in northern Wales around Deva (Chester); beside Hadrian's Wall around Luguvalium (Carlisle); and between the walls along Dere Street.
4th century
Emperor Constantius returned to Britain in 306, despite his poor health, with an army aiming to invade northern Britain, the provincial defences having been rebuilt in the preceding years. Little is known of his campaigns with scant archaeological evidence, but fragmentary historical sources suggest he reached the far north of Britain and won a major battle in early summer before returning south. His son Constantine (later Constantine the Great) spent a year in northern Britain at his father's side, campaigning against the Picts beyond Hadrian's Wall in the summer and autumn. Constantius died in York in July 306 with his son at his side. Constantine then successfully used Britain as the starting point of his march to the imperial throne, unlike the earlier usurper, Albinus.
In the middle of the century, the province was loyal for a few years to the usurper Magnentius, who succeeded Constans following the latter's death. After the defeat and death of Magnentius in the Battle of Mons Seleucus in 353, Constantius II dispatched his chief imperial notary Paulus Catena to Britain to hunt down Magnentius's supporters. The investigation deteriorated into a witch-hunt, which forced the vicarius Flavius Martinus to intervene. When Paulus retaliated by accusing Martinus of treason, the vicarius attacked Paulus with a sword, with the aim of assassinating him, but in the end he committed suicide.
As the 4th century progressed, there were increasing attacks from the Saxons in the east and the Scoti (Irish) in the west. A series of forts had been built, starting around 280, to defend the coasts, but these preparations were not enough when, in 367, a general assault of Saxons, Picts, Scoti and Attacotti, combined with apparent dissension in the garrison on Hadrian's Wall, left Roman Britain prostrate. The invaders overwhelmed the entire western and northern regions of Britannia and the cities were sacked. This crisis, sometimes called the Barbarian Conspiracy or the Great Conspiracy, was settled by Count Theodosius from 368 with a string of military and civil reforms. Theodosius crossed from Bononia (Boulogne-sur-Mer) and marched on Londinium where he began to deal with the invaders and made his base.[ An amnesty was promised to deserters which enabled Theodosius to regarrison abandoned forts. By the end of the year Hadrian's Wall was retaken and order returned. Considerable reorganization was undertaken in Britain, including the creation of a new province named Valentia, probably to better address the state of the far north. A new Dux Britanniarum was appointed, Dulcitius, with Civilis to head a new civilian administration.
Another imperial usurper, Magnus Maximus, raised the standard of revolt at Segontium (Caernarfon) in north Wales in 383, and crossed the English Channel. Maximus held much of the western empire, and fought a successful campaign against the Picts and Scots around 384. His continental exploits required troops from Britain, and it appears that forts at Chester and elsewhere were abandoned in this period, triggering raids and settlement in north Wales by the Irish. His rule was ended in 388, but not all the British troops may have returned: the Empire's military resources were stretched to the limit along the Rhine and Danube. Around 396 there were more barbarian incursions into Britain. Stilicho led a punitive expedition. It seems peace was restored by 399, and it is likely that no further garrisoning was ordered; by 401 more troops were withdrawn, to assist in the war against Alaric I.
End of Roman rule
The traditional view of historians, informed by the work of Michael Rostovtzeff, was of a widespread economic decline at the beginning of the 5th century. Consistent archaeological evidence has told another story, and the accepted view is undergoing re-evaluation. Some features are agreed: more opulent but fewer urban houses, an end to new public building and some abandonment of existing ones, with the exception of defensive structures, and the widespread formation of "dark earth" deposits indicating increased horticulture within urban precincts. Turning over the basilica at Silchester to industrial uses in the late 3rd century, doubtless officially condoned, marks an early stage in the de-urbanisation of Roman Britain.
The abandonment of some sites is now believed to be later than had been thought. Many buildings changed use but were not destroyed. There was a growing number of barbarian attacks, but these targeted vulnerable rural settlements rather than towns. Some villas such as Chedworth, Great Casterton in Rutland and Hucclecote in Gloucestershire had new mosaic floors laid around this time, suggesting that economic problems may have been limited and patchy. Many suffered some decay before being abandoned in the 5th century; the story of Saint Patrick indicates that villas were still occupied until at least 430. Exceptionally, new buildings were still going up in this period in Verulamium and Cirencester. Some urban centres, for example Canterbury, Cirencester, Wroxeter, Winchester and Gloucester, remained active during the 5th and 6th centuries, surrounded by large farming estates.
Urban life had generally grown less intense by the fourth quarter of the 4th century, and coins minted between 378 and 388 are very rare, indicating a likely combination of economic decline, diminishing numbers of troops, problems with the payment of soldiers and officials or with unstable conditions during the usurpation of Magnus Maximus 383–87. Coinage circulation increased during the 390s, but never attained the levels of earlier decades. Copper coins are very rare after 402, though minted silver and gold coins from hoards indicate they were still present in the province even if they were not being spent. By 407 there were very few new Roman coins going into circulation, and by 430 it is likely that coinage as a medium of exchange had been abandoned. Mass-produced wheel thrown pottery ended at approximately the same time; the rich continued to use metal and glass vessels, while the poor made do with humble "grey ware" or resorted to leather or wooden containers.
Sub-Roman Britain
Towards the end of the 4th century Roman rule in Britain came under increasing pressure from barbarian attacks. Apparently, there were not enough troops to mount an effective defence. After elevating two disappointing usurpers, the army chose a soldier, Constantine III, to become emperor in 407. He crossed to Gaul but was defeated by Honorius; it is unclear how many troops remained or ever returned, or whether a commander-in-chief in Britain was ever reappointed. A Saxon incursion in 408 was apparently repelled by the Britons, and in 409 Zosimus records that the natives expelled the Roman civilian administration. Zosimus may be referring to the Bacaudic rebellion of the Breton inhabitants of Armorica since he describes how, in the aftermath of the revolt, all of Armorica and the rest of Gaul followed the example of the Brettaniai. A letter from Emperor Honorius in 410 has traditionally been seen as rejecting a British appeal for help, but it may have been addressed to Bruttium or Bologna. With the imperial layers of the military and civil government gone, administration and justice fell to municipal authorities, and local warlords gradually emerged all over Britain, still utilizing Romano-British ideals and conventions. Historian Stuart Laycock has investigated this process and emphasised elements of continuity from the British tribes in the pre-Roman and Roman periods, through to the native post-Roman kingdoms.
In British tradition, pagan Saxons were invited by Vortigern to assist in fighting the Picts, Scoti, and Déisi. (Germanic migration into Roman Britannia may have begun much earlier. There is recorded evidence, for example, of Germanic auxiliaries supporting the legions in Britain in the 1st and 2nd centuries.) The new arrivals rebelled, plunging the country into a series of wars that eventually led to the Saxon occupation of Lowland Britain by 600. Around this time, many Britons fled to Brittany (hence its name), Galicia and probably Ireland. A significant date in sub-Roman Britain is the Groans of the Britons, an unanswered appeal to Aetius, leading general of the western Empire, for assistance against Saxon invasion in 446. Another is the Battle of Deorham in 577, after which the significant cities of Bath, Cirencester and Gloucester fell and the Saxons reached the western sea.
Historians generally reject the historicity of King Arthur, who is supposed to have resisted the Anglo-Saxon conquest according to later medieval legends.
Trade
During the Roman period Britain's continental trade was principally directed across the Southern North Sea and Eastern Channel, focusing on the narrow Strait of Dover, with more limited links via the Atlantic seaways. The most important British ports were London and Richborough, whilst the continental ports most heavily engaged in trade with Britain were Boulogne and the sites of Domburg and Colijnsplaat at the mouth of the river Scheldt. During the Late Roman period it is likely that the shore forts played some role in continental trade alongside their defensive functions.
Exports to Britain included: coin; pottery, particularly red-gloss terra sigillata (samian ware) from southern, central and eastern Gaul, as well as various other wares from Gaul and the Rhine provinces; olive oil from southern Spain in amphorae; wine from Gaul in amphorae and barrels; salted fish products from the western Mediterranean and Brittany in barrels and amphorae; preserved olives from southern Spain in amphorae; lava quern-stones from Mayen on the middle Rhine; glass; and some agricultural products. Britain's exports are harder to detect archaeologically, but will have included metals, such as silver and gold and some lead, iron and copper. Other exports probably included agricultural products, oysters and salt, whilst large quantities of coin would have been re-exported back to the continent as well.
These products moved as a result of private trade and also through payments and contracts established by the Roman state to support its military forces and officials on the island, as well as through state taxation and extraction of resources. Up until the mid-3rd century, the Roman state's payments appear to have been unbalanced, with far more products sent to Britain, to support its large military force (which had reached c. 53,000 by the mid-2nd century), than were extracted from the island.
It has been argued that Roman Britain's continental trade peaked in the late 1st century AD and thereafter declined as a result of an increasing reliance on local products by the population of Britain, caused by economic development on the island and by the Roman state's desire to save money by shifting away from expensive long-distance imports. Evidence has been outlined that suggests that the principal decline in Roman Britain's continental trade may have occurred in the late 2nd century AD, from c. 165 AD onwards. This has been linked to the economic impact of contemporary Empire-wide crises: the Antonine Plague and the Marcomannic Wars.
From the mid-3rd century onwards, Britain no longer received such a wide range and extensive quantity of foreign imports as it did during the earlier part of the Roman period; vast quantities of coin from continental mints reached the island, whilst there is historical evidence for the export of large amounts of British grain to the continent during the mid-4th century. During the latter part of the Roman period British agricultural products, paid for by both the Roman state and by private consumers, clearly played an important role in supporting the military garrisons and urban centres of the northwestern continental Empire. This came about as a result of the rapid decline in the size of the British garrison from the mid-3rd century onwards (thus freeing up more goods for export), and because of 'Germanic' incursions across the Rhine, which appear to have reduced rural settlement and agricultural output in northern Gaul.
Economy
Mineral extraction sites such as the Dolaucothi gold mine were probably first worked by the Roman army from c. 75, and at some later stage passed to civilian operators. The mine developed as a series of opencast workings, mainly by the use of hydraulic mining methods. They are described by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History in great detail. Essentially, water supplied by aqueducts was used to prospect for ore veins by stripping away soil to reveal the bedrock. If veins were present, they were attacked using fire-setting and the ore removed for comminution. The dust was washed in a small stream of water and the heavy gold dust and gold nuggets collected in riffles. The diagram at right shows how Dolaucothi developed from c. 75 through to the 1st century. When opencast work was no longer feasible, tunnels were driven to follow the veins. The evidence from the site shows advanced technology probably under the control of army engineers.
The Wealden ironworking zone, the lead and silver mines of the Mendip Hills and the tin mines of Cornwall seem to have been private enterprises leased from the government for a fee. Mining had long been practised in Britain (see Grimes Graves), but the Romans introduced new technical knowledge and large-scale industrial production to revolutionise the industry. It included hydraulic mining to prospect for ore by removing overburden as well as work alluvial deposits. The water needed for such large-scale operations was supplied by one or more aqueducts, those surviving at Dolaucothi being especially impressive. Many prospecting areas were in dangerous, upland country, and, although mineral exploitation was presumably one of the main reasons for the Roman invasion, it had to wait until these areas were subdued.
By the 3rd and 4th centuries, small towns could often be found near villas. In these towns, villa owners and small-scale farmers could obtain specialist tools. Lowland Britain in the 4th century was agriculturally prosperous enough to export grain to the continent. This prosperity lay behind the blossoming of villa building and decoration that occurred between AD 300 and 350.
Britain's cities also consumed Roman-style pottery and other goods, and were centres through which goods could be distributed elsewhere. At Wroxeter in Shropshire, stock smashed into a gutter during a 2nd-century fire reveals that Gaulish samian ware was being sold alongside mixing bowls from the Mancetter-Hartshill industry of the West Midlands. Roman designs were most popular, but rural craftsmen still produced items derived from the Iron Age La Tène artistic traditions. Britain was home to much gold, which attracted Roman invaders. By the 3rd century, Britain's economy was diverse and well established, with commerce extending into the non-Romanised north.
Government
Further information: Governors of Roman Britain, Roman client kingdoms in Britain, and Roman auxiliaries in Britain
Under the Roman Empire, administration of peaceful provinces was ultimately the remit of the Senate, but those, like Britain, that required permanent garrisons, were placed under the Emperor's control. In practice imperial provinces were run by resident governors who were members of the Senate and had held the consulship. These men were carefully selected, often having strong records of military success and administrative ability. In Britain, a governor's role was primarily military, but numerous other tasks were also his responsibility, such as maintaining diplomatic relations with local client kings, building roads, ensuring the public courier system functioned, supervising the civitates and acting as a judge in important legal cases. When not campaigning, he would travel the province hearing complaints and recruiting new troops.
To assist him in legal matters he had an adviser, the legatus juridicus, and those in Britain appear to have been distinguished lawyers perhaps because of the challenge of incorporating tribes into the imperial system and devising a workable method of taxing them. Financial administration was dealt with by a procurator with junior posts for each tax-raising power. Each legion in Britain had a commander who answered to the governor and, in time of war, probably directly ruled troublesome districts. Each of these commands carried a tour of duty of two to three years in different provinces. Below these posts was a network of administrative managers covering intelligence gathering, sending reports to Rome, organising military supplies and dealing with prisoners. A staff of seconded soldiers provided clerical services.
Colchester was probably the earliest capital of Roman Britain, but it was soon eclipsed by London with its strong mercantile connections. The different forms of municipal organisation in Britannia were known as civitas (which were subdivided, amongst other forms, into colonies such as York, Colchester, Gloucester and Lincoln and municipalities such as Verulamium), and were each governed by a senate of local landowners, whether Brythonic or Roman, who elected magistrates concerning judicial and civic affairs. The various civitates sent representatives to a yearly provincial council in order to profess loyalty to the Roman state, to send direct petitions to the Emperor in times of extraordinary need, and to worship the imperial cult.
Demographics
Roman Britain had an estimated population between 2.8 million and 3 million people at the end of the second century. At the end of the fourth century, it had an estimated population of 3.6 million people, of whom 125,000 consisted of the Roman army and their families and dependents.[80] The urban population of Roman Britain was about 240,000 people at the end of the fourth century. The capital city of Londinium is estimated to have had a population of about 60,000 people. Londinium was an ethnically diverse city with inhabitants from the Roman Empire, including natives of Britannia, continental Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. There was also cultural diversity in other Roman-British towns, which were sustained by considerable migration, from Britannia and other Roman territories, including continental Europe, Roman Syria, the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa. In a study conducted in 2012, around 45 percent of sites investigated dating from the Roman period had at least one individual of North African origin.
Town and country
During their occupation of Britain the Romans founded a number of important settlements, many of which survive. The towns suffered attrition in the later 4th century, when public building ceased and some were abandoned to private uses. Place names survived the deurbanised Sub-Roman and early Anglo-Saxon periods, and historiography has been at pains to signal the expected survivals, but archaeology shows that a bare handful of Roman towns were continuously occupied. According to S.T. Loseby, the very idea of a town as a centre of power and administration was reintroduced to England by the Roman Christianising mission to Canterbury, and its urban revival was delayed to the 10th century.
Roman towns can be broadly grouped in two categories. Civitates, "public towns" were formally laid out on a grid plan, and their role in imperial administration occasioned the construction of public buildings. The much more numerous category of vici, "small towns" grew on informal plans, often round a camp or at a ford or crossroads; some were not small, others were scarcely urban, some not even defended by a wall, the characteristic feature of a place of any importance.
Cities and towns which have Roman origins, or were extensively developed by them are listed with their Latin names in brackets; civitates are marked C
Alcester (Alauna)
Alchester
Aldborough, North Yorkshire (Isurium Brigantum) C
Bath (Aquae Sulis) C
Brough (Petuaria) C
Buxton (Aquae Arnemetiae)
Caerleon (Isca Augusta) C
Caernarfon (Segontium) C
Caerwent (Venta Silurum) C
Caister-on-Sea C
Canterbury (Durovernum Cantiacorum) C
Carlisle (Luguvalium) C
Carmarthen (Moridunum) C
Chelmsford (Caesaromagus)
Chester (Deva Victrix) C
Chester-le-Street (Concangis)
Chichester (Noviomagus Reginorum) C
Cirencester (Corinium) C
Colchester (Camulodunum) C
Corbridge (Coria) C
Dorchester (Durnovaria) C
Dover (Portus Dubris)
Exeter (Isca Dumnoniorum) C
Gloucester (Glevum) C
Great Chesterford (the name of this vicus is unknown)
Ilchester (Lindinis) C
Leicester (Ratae Corieltauvorum) C
Lincoln (Lindum Colonia) C
London (Londinium) C
Manchester (Mamucium) C
Newcastle upon Tyne (Pons Aelius)
Northwich (Condate)
St Albans (Verulamium) C
Silchester (Calleva Atrebatum) C
Towcester (Lactodurum)
Whitchurch (Mediolanum) C
Winchester (Venta Belgarum) C
Wroxeter (Viroconium Cornoviorum) C
York (Eboracum) C
Religion
The druids, the Celtic priestly caste who were believed to originate in Britain, were outlawed by Claudius, and in 61 they vainly defended their sacred groves from destruction by the Romans on the island of Mona (Anglesey). Under Roman rule the Britons continued to worship native Celtic deities, such as Ancasta, but often conflated with their Roman equivalents, like Mars Rigonemetos at Nettleham.
The degree to which earlier native beliefs survived is difficult to gauge precisely. Certain European ritual traits such as the significance of the number 3, the importance of the head and of water sources such as springs remain in the archaeological record, but the differences in the votive offerings made at the baths at Bath, Somerset, before and after the Roman conquest suggest that continuity was only partial. Worship of the Roman emperor is widely recorded, especially at military sites. The founding of a Roman temple to Claudius at Camulodunum was one of the impositions that led to the revolt of Boudica. By the 3rd century, Pagans Hill Roman Temple in Somerset was able to exist peaceably and it did so into the 5th century.
Pagan religious practices were supported by priests, represented in Britain by votive deposits of priestly regalia such as chain crowns from West Stow and Willingham Fen.
Eastern cults such as Mithraism also grew in popularity towards the end of the occupation. The London Mithraeum is one example of the popularity of mystery religions among the soldiery. Temples to Mithras also exist in military contexts at Vindobala on Hadrian's Wall (the Rudchester Mithraeum) and at Segontium in Roman Wales (the Caernarfon Mithraeum).
Christianity
It is not clear when or how Christianity came to Britain. A 2nd-century "word square" has been discovered in Mamucium, the Roman settlement of Manchester. It consists of an anagram of PATER NOSTER carved on a piece of amphora. There has been discussion by academics whether the "word square" is a Christian artefact, but if it is, it is one of the earliest examples of early Christianity in Britain. The earliest confirmed written evidence for Christianity in Britain is a statement by Tertullian, c. 200 AD, in which he described "all the limits of the Spains, and the diverse nations of the Gauls, and the haunts of the Britons, inaccessible to the Romans, but subjugated to Christ". Archaeological evidence for Christian communities begins to appear in the 3rd and 4th centuries. Small timber churches are suggested at Lincoln and Silchester and baptismal fonts have been found at Icklingham and the Saxon Shore Fort at Richborough. The Icklingham font is made of lead, and visible in the British Museum. A Roman Christian graveyard exists at the same site in Icklingham. A possible Roman 4th-century church and associated burial ground was also discovered at Butt Road on the south-west outskirts of Colchester during the construction of the new police station there, overlying an earlier pagan cemetery. The Water Newton Treasure is a hoard of Christian silver church plate from the early 4th century and the Roman villas at Lullingstone and Hinton St Mary contained Christian wall paintings and mosaics respectively. A large 4th-century cemetery at Poundbury with its east–west oriented burials and lack of grave goods has been interpreted as an early Christian burial ground, although such burial rites were also becoming increasingly common in pagan contexts during the period.
The Church in Britain seems to have developed the cust
With the tenement building removed from over the entrance and passageway to Cowcaddens Underground Station was obviously not very watertight requiring extensive plastic sheeting on 25 September 1973.
A temporary footpath seems in use through to the former Cambridge Street tenements behind and straight on to West Graham Street.