Two rulers joined across 1,500 years.

Visiting Bewcastle recently we struck by how history repeats itself.

Although well to the north of the Wall at Birdoswald the Romans built Castra Exploratorum at Netherby in the Esk Valley.

1500 years later Queen Elizabeth 1st and her governor took the same stone used by the Romans and built a small squat fort.

Both had the same purpose ...to control the warriors and bandits who would periodically descend from Redesdale and plunder the land. An early sign of Border Reivers indeed.