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C O N T E X T 1 7 9 : M A R C H 2 0 2 4 15 H A D R I A N ’ S WA L L Opposite: An inscription found at the fort of Moresby at the west end of Hadrian’s Wall, held at the British Museum. It reads: (This work) of the Emperor Caesar Trajan Hadrian Augustus, father of his country, the Twentieth Legion Valeria Victrix (built) Editorial The man who saved Hadrian’s Wall In 1792, when John Clayton was four years old, his father Nathaniel bought theChesters Estate, west of Newcastle.Thiswas the site of Chesters Roman fort, and Hadrian’s Wall ran through it. Nathaniel set about levelling and grassing over much of the Roman ruins, but he did collect the Roman antiquities he found there. This sparked the interest of his son, who was dismayed to see the destruction of the Roman ruins. In time John succeeded his father as town clerk of Newcastle, a post he held for 45 years, proving himself a talented and effective fixer. Among other feats, John Clayton facilitated the builder Richard Grainger’s comprehensive development plan for the centre of Newcastle, with Clayton Street being named after him. Clayton’s talents made him enormously wealthy, enabling him to pursue his passion for conservation and archaeology. He bought the land occupied by five of the Roman forts and most of a 20-mile stretch of Hadrian’s Wall. He prevented quarrying near to the wall, forbade the reuse of Roman stone in new buildings and cleared buildings constructed on the remains. He built a pavilion to display his archaeological collection, and his nephew Nathaniel later built a permanent museum. One other thing. JohnClayton has been called, by the Northern Echo , among others, ‘the man who planted the Sycamore Gap tree’. That was the tree that stood in a dramatic dip on Hadrian’s Wall until it was felled by vandals in September 2023. The public reaction underlined just how important the wall’s landscape is to somany people. It is true that Claytonwas the owner of the land inwhich the tree was planted, but it seems unlikely that he would have planted a tree so very close to thewall that hewas committed to conserving.Whichever way, John Clayton deserves to be celebrated as a hero of conservation. He and the others who have conserved so much of Hadrian’s Wall and its associated structures over the years have left us plenty to puzzle about. What exactly was the wall’s function? Why was that location chosen, rather than the much shorter route on which the Romans built the Antonine Wall only 20 years later (only to abandon it eight years after completion, withdrawing to Hadrian’s Wall)? How much of today’s visible structure of Hadrian’s Wall is reconstruction? That history is the starting point for this issue of Context.