The Great Wall of England
A poem by Jon Bratton and Paul Perro
Britain was ruled by the RomansThousands of years ago.
They built towns and roads in England and Wales,
They didn't want Scotland though.
The Scotsmen and the Romans
Did not get on at all.
To stop the Scots from stealing the sheep
The Romans built a big wall.
It stretched from the Solway Firth in the west
To the Newcastle in the east.
Such a wall would need lots of stones,
Millions, at least
The Emperor was in charge of the work,
Hadrian was his name.
He did lots of things while he was in charge
But his wall gave him lasting fame.
It took a few years to build the wall,
Things took longer back then.
They used hundreds of horses to pull the carts
And thousands of working men.
Every so often they built forts and towers
That were ever so tall,
So the soldiers could see any Scotsmen
Trying to climb the wall.
The Romans stayed in Britain
For hundreds of years, altogether.
I wonder why they stayed so long?
It couldn't have been the weather.
That the wall was very strong
Would be fair to say.
It was built thousands of years ago
And is still standing today.
Indeed, from all around the World
People come to see it.
There's always a tourist somewhere around
You can almost guarantee it!
And now as we reach the end of this poem
About the great Hadrian's wall.
I wonder if this was the place
Where Humpty had his great fall?
Facts about Hadrian's Wall
- The Romans invaded Britain in 43AD, conquering England and Wales, but not Scotland. Scotland was home to the warlike Picts and Caledonians, whom the legions had not been able to subdue.
- When Hadrian became Emperor in AD 117 he wanted to consolidate the empire, not expand, and built several walls in different countries and continents, including northern England.
- Hadrian's Wall was 73 miles long, 8 to 10 feet wide, and took 6 years to build.
- Many soldiers and their families lived in settlements just inside the wall.
- In AD 197 the wall was overrun by the barbarian Picts from the north. Many of the forts had to be rebuilt.
- Angles and Saxons - pirates from Northern Germany - started to attack farms and villas in south east England. In AD 285 the Romans started to build more walls and fortifications along the coast. Eventually they stretched from Norfolk all the way down to Isle of Wight. The Romans called it the Saxon Shore.
- When the Angles and the Saxons started attacking the Empire all across Europe, the survival of Rome itself was threatened. In AD 407, the army was called back to Rome; the wall was abandoned, along with the rest of England.
- Hadrian's Wall is still intact today in many places, and can be walked along for much of its length. It is the most popular tourist attraction in Northern England.
If you would like to find out more about Hadrian's Wall, visit aboutscotland.co.uk
