Boudicca and the Roman forts

Along the line of that wall built in the north of England, a number of forts once housed the soldiers who guarded it, and two of the best survive. Housesteads and Vindolanda can both still be visited, their stone foundations, barracks and gateways giving a clear sense of what garrison life on the frontier was actually like, and together with the rest of the wall they form a World Heritage Site that draws walkers along its length today.

Roman control did not go unchallenged. Boudicca, queen of the Iceni, a tribe in what is now eastern England, led her people in revolt against the occupying Romans, and that resistance is still remembered today. A statue of her stands on Westminster Bridge in London, close to the Houses of Parliament, keeping her place in the story of Britain visible in the middle of the capital.