If you’re into local geology, ancient history, stunning photos of landscapes and objects that carry echoes of human activity across the centuries, or if you just fancy learning about some northern sites worth rambling to, then this book should feed your eyes and stimulate your imagination. In fact, even if you don’t think you’d qualify as that sort of person, still this beautiful book should entrance you. An oversized paperback with notably high production values, it features fifty full-page photos of places, structures and objects each of which opens a line of enquiry about how the landscape and natural resources of the northern frontier shaped the Roman occupation. The page of text that accompanies each picture discusses not just rocks and minerals, water and soil but also the social context of their uses, especially in relation to Hadrian’s wall. Examples range from tiny, exquisite carved gemstones that must have dropped from the rings worn by Romans basking in the steamy baths that have long since vanished beneath Carlisle Cricket club, to the peat deposits at Swallow Crags, to the remains of Housteads Fort, now framed by wide open skies that dwarf its original military structures.

Published by Northern Heritage

Gail-Nina Anderson