Willowford Roman Bridge

These are the remains of a bridge that the Romans built on our farm nearly 2000 years ago. You are looking at the eastern abutment of a huge stone structure that spanned the river - in those times the river ran past here, but since then it's course has moved westwards leaving the stones stranded in the field. The stones are huge and beautifully dressed, really very impressive given the limited machinery and technology that the Romans had to work with.

The site was excavated in the 1920s by a keen archaeologist, I'm told, pretty much single-handedly. The rest of the wall on this stretch was uncovered in the 1950s by a government organised campaign that saw large lengths of the wall in the central section unearthed and consolidated.

Before the footbridge was installed across the river, those interested in seeing the remains were encouraged to put a donation into a box that was collected by the previous tenants to compensate them for the inconvenience of having people traipse through their farm. Now it's part of the very popular Hadrian's Wall National Trail.