08/01/2025
St Michael's Church in Burgh by Sands, Cumberland/Cumbria, England—c. 1935 and 2025. It stands on the site of Aballava, a Hadrian's Wall fort.
Aballava covered an estimated area of over five acres. It was the first fort from the western end of the Wall to straddle it, and was probably built to guard the Solway fords. A vicus (civilian settlement) developed to the south of the fort.
The initial plan for Hadrian's Wall was a curtain wall with turrets and a guarded gate every Roman mile (approximately). During construction, the plan changed and larger forts were added. Aballava was possibly built in the late 120s AD, during construction of the Wall, or perhaps at a later date when the western section of Hadrian's Wall was rebuilt in stone. The fort was garrisoned by the Ala I Tungrorum (The First Wing of Tungri) in the 2nd century. This unit was followed by the First Cohort of Nervian Germans. An inscription on an altar found in the River Eden in 1852 is translated as:
"To Jupiter, Best and Greatest, the First Nervan Cohort of Germans, a thousand strong, part-mounted, (set this up) under the command of Publius Tuscilius … ]asinianus, the tribune."
The unit Cuneus Frisiorum (Frisians) also garrisoned Aballava.
Aballava is one of the first recorded sites in Britain to have a North African military unit. The soldiers of the unit were Berbers called "Aurelian Moors" from the Roman province of Mauretania (present-day Morocco and Algeria). The unit garrisoned the fort in the 3rd century AD. Evidence for this comes in the form of a Roman altar that was discovered in 1934. It records a dedication to Jupiter by Caelius Vibianus, who was commander of Numerus Maurorum Aurelianorum (The Unit of Aurelian Moors).
In the centuries after the Roman military abandoned Britain many of the structures they left behind were quarried for their stone. Alas, there are no intact ruins of Aballava above ground level.
St Michael's Church is a fortified church that dates back to the 12th century AD. It was built almost entirely of stone from the fort and Hadrian's Wall. The church was built within the perimeter of the old Roman fort.
In 1307, King Edward I of England died near Burgh-by-Sands and his body was brought to this church to lie in state. Sometime later that century, with the borderlands becoming ever more dangerous, St Michael's was fortified with two towers, east and west, for protection. The east tower was used as a fortified home for a priest but the west tower (pictured) was an important line of defence and could only be accessed through a yett, which is a defensive door or gate of latticed wrought iron bars. There were no windows on the first floor, and arrowslits on the floors above offered an opportunity to fight back if the church was under attack. The following paragraph is an extract from Bygone Cumberland and Westmorland by Daniel Scott, 1899, which describes the west tower:
"The tower of Burgh-by-Sands Church, close to the Solway, was built at the west end of the structure, with walls six feet to seven feet in thickness. A further indication of the desire for security is found in the bottoms of the windows of the church, which were placed eight feet from the ground. Entrance to the fortified tower could only be obtained through a ponderous iron door six feet eight inches high, with two massive bolts, and constructed of thick bars crossing each other, and boarded over with oak planks. As only one person at a time could gain access to the vaulted chamber, there was every possibility of offering effective opposition to attacks, while the ringing of the bells would be the signal for bringing any available help. What was true of one side of the Solway was equally true of the other, there being still traces of fortified churches on the Scottish side of the Firth."
The east tower was eventually lowered to the height of the church roof, and when peace finally prevailed over the Borderlands, it was used as a small schoolroom.
The church is beautiful inside, and you can feel the presence of history all around you. There are Norman beakhead decorations, a possible tympanum above the doorway into the west tower, a spiral staircase, a carved Roman corbel stone, and there are also stained glass windows, one of which depicts King Edward I.
St Michael's Church is one of three fortified churches in Cumbria. The building demonstrates just how dangerous the Borderlands were once upon a time, and the bells that warned the people of an imminent raid are the same bells used to call parishioners to worship today.
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📷 Old photo courtesy of the Francis Frith Collection
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