Category: Cumbria

Beaumont (apparently pronounced Bee-mont) is a village on the Hadrian’s Wall Trail.  It is the third of the three East Solway churches – website – and Elaine and I called in on Thursday 31 March while walking Burgh to Carlisle. We walked up to St Mary’s church NY347593, “up” being the operative word – it stands on the site of a Roman turret (70A). Later we saw a poster for their Easter Egg Rolling Competition – I love the idea that the Centurion said “Right lads, keep building, they’ll need this mound nice and tall for Easter Egg rolling”....

St Michael’s church, Burgh by Sands – website – NY329591. Here we are on top of the Roman fort of Aballava, probably the apple orchard. They will even sell you a postcard of the fort. In the C3 the garrison consisted of Moors from North Africa, and probably Frisians (northern Netherlands) and Germans. No one seems to know exactly what happened to the settlement at the end of Roman rule, but the stone certainly came in useful. I wonder if this is an old lump in the church wall. As you walk up the path there are a set...

Julie and I went for a drive on Easter Tuesday 29 March 2016. It was a good sunny day in Hexham, but clouded over as we entered Cumbria. By the time we had driven round the Carlisle bypass there were some quite heavy showers. We drove through Burgh and on to Bowness – I think J was quite impressed with how far I had walked last week. We parked outside St Michael’s church in Bowness-on-Solway NY234627. Church website.  Today there was no service so I could go and explore. We are in the middle of a Roman site, so is...