ROMAN ORIGINS
PONS AELIUS, CONDERCUM & SEGEDUNUM
Benwell, in the western suburbs of Newcastle upon Tyne was the site of a fort on Hadrian's Wall called CONDERCUM but the later name of Benwell is of Anglo Saxon origin deriving from Beonnam-Wall meaning a place within the wall Today most of what remains of the fort at Benwell is largely buried beneath modern housing, but the defensive Roman ditch called the `Vallum' can still be clearly be seen along with the nearby ruins of a Roman temple dedicated to a local god called Antenociticus.
From Benwell the Roman wall continued east, towards the fort near the river at Newcastle called Pons Aelius . Between Benwell and Newcastle City Centre Hadrian's Wall more or less ran along the course of what is now the Westgate Road. This road is built along the site of a Roman defensive ditch situated just north of Hadrian's Wall.
In Roman times the fort of Pons Aelius at Newcastle was probably not as important as that at Benwell, although it had a significant role in guarding a Roman bridge across the Tyne. Pons was the Latin word for Bridge, so Pons Aelius was the name of both the the fort and the bridge at Newcastle. In fact Pons Aelius can be translated to mean `the Bridge of Hadrian' , as Aelius, was the family name of the Emperor who gave his name to the Roman Wall. Pons Alelius was probably an early name for Newcastle.
The Roman bridge at Newcastle was built of timber on stone piers and may have continued in use for many centuries. Records suggest that the bridge may still have stood in Norman times and if this is so then it was not finally destroyed until 1248 during a raging fire. It is highly likely that a medieval bridge which replaced this burned structure still utilised the Roman foundations.
Initially the Roman bridge and fort at Newcastle formed the eastern terminus of Hadrian's Wall but later the wall was extended three miles further to the east where a fort called Segedunum was built at what we now know as Wallsend.
The fort of Segedunum was strategically located at the point where a short northward flowing section of the River Tyne suddenly turns east towards the sea. East of here the Tyne provided a natural continuation of Roman defences. This is demonstrated by the fact that one of the defensive walls of Wallsend fort actually extended into the River Tyne itself.
Two altars have been found that were on the original Pons Aelius one was dedicated to Oceanius who was the god of the sea and Neptune who at the time was the god of fresh water these were placed on the bridge because the Romans thought that at this point the fresh water of the river met with the sea.
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