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When Newcastle schoolmaster John Collingwood Bruce planned a holiday in Rome, he chose the wrong year.

It was 1848, when revolution was sweeping across Europe.

Bruce had to call off the Rome trip and instead he set off in June of that year to tour the length of Hadrian’s Wall through tracts of land which were then wild and remote.

He made notes on his journey, and was accompanied by his son Gainsford and the Newcastle artist brothers Henry and Charles Richardson.

Their efforts would help spark new interest in the Wall, at that time “comparatively unobserved and unnoticed” but which has since found world global recognition as a world heritage site.

(Image: Henry Burdon Richardson)

Their work also provides us today with a view of how the Wall and landscape looked in the middle of the 19th century, before the dawning of the modern world.

Henry, one of six sons - all painters – of the artist Thomas Miles Richardson, created 48 paintings of what he saw of the Wall and later added another 11 images.

The Richardson family, including Thomas junior, painted at least 77 views of the Wall from 1848 to the 1880s, which are now with Tyne Wear Archives and Museums.

Some of the 1848 images were turned into engravings and used to illustrate Bruce’s 1851 book, The Roman Wall, which went to three editions, and the smaller Handbook of the Roman Wall.

The handbook has been continuously revised since its last edition in 1885, most recently in 2006 by Roman scholar David Breeze, honorary professor at Newcastle and Durham universities and past president of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Bruce, who ran the Percy Street Academy in Newcastle, provided his readers with a detailed description and interpretation of the Wall.

David has written a book featuring more than 70 of the paintings, which show how the Wall and landscape looked in the 19th century. Hadrian’s Wall: Paintings by the Richardson Family, is published by Birlinn at £25.

“The paintings had dropped out of public consciousness and I had the idea of bringing them all together ,” David said. “Henry Richardson’s paintings are particularly valuable because there are so many of them, covering the whole length of the Wall and offering a snapshot in time.

“As a portfolio, they are unique, and show a lost Tyneside. There are very few paintings or drawings earlier than this.”

(Image: Henry Burdon Richardson)

Around this time Newcastle lawyer and town clerk John Clayton, who owned the Chesters estate at Chollerford in Northumberland through which the Wall ran, had started excavating the Roman fort on his doorstep.

He bought up miles of the central section of the Wall, including five forts, and demolished old farms which had been built on the archaeological sites, building new ones elsewhere for the farmers.

“He was creating what in effect was an archaeological park, moving farms off the line of the monument,” says David, who will be giving a talk on Bruce and the paintings at a conference on the Wall held by the Arbeia Society at South Shields Roman fort on Saturday.

According to David, Henry Richardson, Bruce and Clayton were responsible for creating the modern perception of Hadrian’s Wall.

He says: “Bruce created a literary view of the Wall, the Richardsons painted a series of views and Clayton bought stretches of the wall to create the landscape we see now in Northumberland.”

Bruce gave a series of talks at the Literary and Philosophical Society in Newcastle about the Wall and his journey.

(Image: Newcastle Chronicle)

He later wrote that his audiences were surprised that “so magnificent a monument existed and remained comparatively unobserved and unnoticed”.

David says: “It may seem strange that the people of Newcastle knew so little about Hadrian’s Wall, but travel was more difficult. Bruce explored the Wall by pony or horse-drawn carriage.

“The central sector was remote and wild, farms were isolated, hotels and inns were almost non-existent.”

In 1849 Bruce led the first “pilgrimage” tour of the Wall. They are now repeated every 10 years, and so far 190 people have signed up to participate in the 14th event next year.

“We have certainly moved on since 1848 but by no means have all of the problems of Hadrian’s Wall been solved, and indeed much of its mysteries remain,” says David.

The conference starts at 10am on Saturday at the Customs House, Mill Dam, South Shields, £20 to non-members at the door or book with alex.croom@twmuseums.org.uk

The theme is “Hadrian’s Wall before the archaeologists- its study in the 18th and 19th centuries.”

The conference will look at the careers and motivations of a wide range of antiquarians and the impact of their discoveries.