Tristan Hughes

Our guest today is Dr Francis McIntosh, Collections Curator for English Heritage at Hadrian's War Room.

Frances, what a pleasure to see you again.

It's great to have you back on the podcast.

It has.

The last time we saw each other in person was, as we were talking just before going live, it was almost five years ago when we did the tour around Corbridge and Chester's Roman Fortress.

It was very good fun.

Well, we're still going to really delve into the story today.

But this is what I find so interesting about Hadrian's Wall.

We've done the story of the monument itself in the past and the various components of it.

I guess the most fascinating thing is learning about the lives of the people who made Hadrian's Wall what it was, the people who lived along this frontier.

This is such an interesting part of Hadrian's Wall's story.

And from the settlements along Hadrian's Wall, do we have quite a rich amount of archaeology surviving which gives us insights into how these people lived?

And that's the key thing to highlight straight away, isn't it?

It is not just soldiers that lived in this, I guess, ancient militarised zone.

Well, we're going to explore a day in the life, what we know from archaeology and whatever other records we have for people who lived, let's say, like the high mark of the Roman Empire in Britain, shall we say, like the second or third century AD.

But beforehand, let's set the scene a bit with Hadrian's Wall.

Some big questions, first of all.

First of all, like quite literally, I mean, how big was Hadrian's Wall and how long did it span?

And it's always attested as the initial building of Hadrian's Wall, at least, to that emperor, the Emperor Hadrian, in the early 2nd century AD.

And it was only recently that it was the 1900th anniversary of Hadrian's Wall, right?