24/05/2021
Take yourself back about 1,800 years and position yourself in Stanwix next to where St Michael's Church now stands in the city of Carlisle just down the road from Stanwix Cottage. You would be right in the middle of a large Roman Fort, Uxelodunum (Petriana), the largest fort on Hadrian's Wall, which housed an elite 1,000 strong Roman cavalry regiment.
Then if you walked down to where the cricket club now stands you would come across a Roman bathhouse that the cavalry regiment used. If you looked to your left you would see Hadrian's Wall stretching off into the distance and in the foreground you would see a wooden bridge crossing the River Eden. If you walked over the bridge you would arrive at the fort and town of Lugavalium which stood next to where Carlisle Castle now stands. If you entered the fort you would be walking amongst Roman soldiers from different parts of the empire and native people speaking languages completely alien to us today.
At this point in history Carlisle was a stronghold at the edge of the Roman Empire, an empire that stretched from here to North Africa and the Middle East. After the Romans abandoned Caledonia (Scotland) Carlisle became the most northwestern settlement in the empire and its strategic and military importance would last for almost 1,400 years after the departure of the Romans.