Just a heads up on this dig currently underway. Pal of mine is on this and is included in the linked photo (Jeremy) I'll be emailing him shortly. http://www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-.../art452532
It's already proving to be an interesting dig.
The above article was from September last year but the latest info indicates a previously unknown port and fort c1st cent.
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Andy.
That is most interesting but it has been known for some time now that there was an earlier fort at Maryport and that it did pre-date the extension of the Wall complex.
In fact the late Raymond Selkirk has written of this place with reference to a much earlier frontier than that of Hadrian, he named it the 255 line for the general direction it takes across the country from coast to coast.
It does indeed run from Whitley Bay on the east to Maryport on the west and so many interesting finds and discoveries have been made along its length, indeed many of these finds were made before this frontier was even discovered by Raymond Selkirk.
It is a frontier that would date from the time of the emperor Trajan and all that Hadrian did was to copy it some 20 or so years later, however he swung it around on a pivot point to put his western part towards the Solway and this pivot point is just west of milecastle 15 along the Wall. The picture included shows the pivot point of the two frontiers and the 255 line is the line of trees to the left and meets the military road just west of milecastle 15 that can be seen as a patch in the green field to the right of the military road that now covers Hadrian's Wall. The buildings in the bottom right of the picture is in fact the farm at Harlow Hill.
I'll forward all this on to Jeremy, although I guess he'll already be aware. Thanks! Must admit I've admired some of your handiwork you are a pretty amazing craftsman! You've inspired me so much that I'd love to give repousse work a go.
Andy.
Thank you for you compliments and I would say that anyone who can draw a picture should be able to do repousse', what you need is to get hold of some very thin shim brass sheet in the region of 5 to 7 thousands of an inch thick.
Then also some leather working tools from a good leather supplier these will have spoon shapes and also some with ball shapes, then also you need a fine awl where you need to blunt the point to a smooth round end and this is used to scribe the pictures on the brass sheet.
In fact you don't even need to draw for you can trace a picture then place it onto the sheet then scibe it gently onto the brass and work from that, you will also need a small piece of soft leather and a smooth hard surface board for when you do reverse scribing.
Will see if I can find pictures I had of the tools you want so you will have a better understanding of what is needed to get into this work.
Andy.
Here is a picture of the leather work tools that I use for hand worked repousse' these can be found in most good leather shops, and as you can also see I even use an old Biro that has no ink left at all this is in fact a large ball Biro.
Where I use the Biro is when I have scribed the picture onto the thin brass sheet with the awl on a sheet of 3 mm leather, then I reverse the sheet metal on the leather and do another more heavy scribe on the inside edge of the reverse figures.
This is the first phase of creating the relief then I do yet another scribe on the inside reverse figures to establish the figures, the brass sheet now needs to go back to its front surface and a rescribe done of the figure lines however this particular scribe is now carried out on a smooth hard surface and this helps to keep the background field nice and flat.
Then when the sheet is back to level one again must reverse on the leather surface and start rubbing the whole figure out a little more, there is a better way once the figures have been established and that is to get a chunk of Plasticine and this works as a very good medium to work on and good depth of figure can be achieved. The plasticine can also be used to fill the raised figures whilst work is carried out on the upper surface of such raised figures.
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Andy.
Here is another picture that may be of interest to Jeremy that is about a mile west of Harlow Hill, this shows the Whittledean water works with the military road running to the west through the lakes.
The buildings above is Welton Tower with a road that runs west however this road links up with where the crossing of the 255 line east of Harlow Hill. It then carries on west towards the Red House fort west of Corbridge where the 255 line in fact crosses the Stanegate then also crosses the river Tyne at Hexham.
This frontier in fact goes through Hexham Abbey that may well have a fort beneath it that housed the Ala Petriana for all the information reference this regiment in fact comes from there and not Corbridge.
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