place
which most visitors to the Wall remember with grateful feelings; for
what is more refreshing, after a long tramp, than a farmhouse cup of tea
accompanied by that most appetising of Northumbrian dainties, hot girdle
cakes! The Visitors' Book at Hot Bank is a "civil list" of all the most
learned and noted names in Great Britain, and many outside its shores,
together with legions of humbler folk. In this it resembles the one at
Cilurnum, which is the only other considerable station along the line of
the Wall in Northumberland.

This station of Cilurnum, or Chesters, is a little over five acres in
extent, and is quite near to Chollerford station on the North British
Railway. To describe Cilurnum in detail, and the interesting museum
connected with it, filled with a wonderful collection of objects found
on the line of the Wall, would require a book to deal with that alone.
The general plan is the same as that which we have already seen at
Borcovicus, with the same rounded corners, and double gateway with
guard-chambers at each side; the western and eastern walls at Chesters,
however, have each an additional single gateway to the south of the
larger portals. We must content ourselves with a short survey of the
camp, with its two wide streets at right angles to each other as at
Borcovicus, and the rest of them very narrow--indeed, little more than
two feet in width; the remains of its Forum and market, its barracks
and houses, its open shops and colonnades, the bases of the pillars yet
in position; its baths, with pipes, cistern, and flues; and a vaulted
chamber which was thought, on its being first excavated, to lead to
underground stables, for a local tradition held that such were in
existence, and would be found, with a troop of five hundred horses. The
vault, however, did not lead further, so that the tradition remained
unproven. Notwithstanding this, there was a grain of fact in it; for
Chesters was a cavalry station, and five hundred was the full complement
of the _ala_, or troop (_ala_ being a "wing," and cavalry forming the
"wing" of an army in position).

Outside the walls of Cilurnum are traces of the usual suburban
dwellings; and here, near the river, stood the villa of the officer in
command of the station. The excavation of all these buildings and many
others took place in the forties and fifties of last century, and were
due to the energy of Mr. John Clayton, the learned and zealous
antiquary, in the poss