Our guide explained about the CORRIDOR HOUSE, which had 6 ground floor rooms, seperated by a corridor, with a possible 6 more above. One of the front rooms was probably a butcher's shop, because the floor has a triple drain system to carry away animal blood into the main town drain.

The BATH-HOUSE had a hot plunge, which could hold up to 4 soldiers, and a cold plunge. The floor was hot, and the bathers wore wooden bath clogs to protect their feet. Romans didn't have soap, but rubbed oil on their skin and scraped it off again with a wooden or bone strigil. Bath-houses were friendly places where bathers would spend at least an hour relaxing with friends.

The STRONG -ROOM was the place where the Romans kept their money and valuables. It had strong thick walls to protect the coins and jewellery that the Romans kept there. The strong-room was situated in the HEADQUARTERS BUILDING (PRINCIPIA). We think that it was guarded by Roman soldiers and that you had to say a password before you could enter. The STRONG ROOM was about 5 metres square and had a sunken pit inside the walls on three sides where the pay, savings and valuables were stored.

There was a part of Vindolanda that they had just recently begun to excavate.This is the EXCAVATION AREA. Since 1973, archaeologists have found the remains of five timber forts before the first stone fort was built around A.D.140. Our guide told us that many important finds had been made in this area including pottery, leather and wooden objects and textiles. The most important discovery however has been over 1000 wooden writing tablets which give us the names and ranks of many Roman soldiers..These tablets have given us a lot of information about the Roman soldiers as well as an insight into life on the England-Scotland border before Hadrians Wall was built.

We saw a BALLISTA near the fort. A ballista is a catapult that fired arrows or rocks. The arrows were wooden with sharp metal tips, and were fired up to 100 metres.We visited a replica MILECASTLE, which had 26 inside steps to the turret, which is just over 10 metres high., and a rampart 7 metres high. Milecastles were located at every mile along the wall, and housed soldiers whilst they were on sentry duty along their stretch of the wall.

Here we are standing on a tiny part of HADRIANS WALL. The wall near Vindolanda was about 1.5 metres high and about 1 metre wide. On either side of the wall there was a ditch to make it even harder to attack.On the wall we could see for miles and miles. The wall was built out of stone and we could see the quarry where we think the stone came from. We imagined we were Roman soldiers looking out for invading Picts in the cold and wet weather.

The sign that said "PLEASE STAY OFF THE WALL" had blown away. The man from the National Trust asked us to get down just after this photo was taken!! OOPS.!!!.It is not permitted to walk on the wall because we might cause some damage it if we walk and climb on it.