York
The northern edge of the world, stone walls and stone coffins are all that are left of the greatest empire the world has ever known. Aside from the empires of Cyrus of Persia, of course or Alexander or Victoria or Uncle Sam. But, really, that the Romans got this far, all things woad considered, is pretty remarkable.
Julius Cesar never saw these walls. Neither did little bossy boots Caligua or even Claw-claw-claudius (although Derek Jacobi probably has). Only Hadrian is known to have even approached this wilderness and eventually decided to build an eponymous wall to the north of this point.
It is commonly thought Mr. Hadrian built his wall to keep the Scots out. A more likely role for the wall was to regulate trade with the canny tribes to the north. To keep track of who was moving into the civilized lands and to collect what was due himself without the bother of having to replace all the casualties further outposts would entail.
There is still a law here, however, that any Scots found inside the city precincts after dark can be shot with a long bow.
Cute.
A hangover from later times, after the Romans left, the Saxons moved in and obscurity pulled the curtain to the rest of the world; a quaint party piece to repeat to the latest invaders from much further afield.
The new invaders are the mirror opposite of history: we take trinkets from the indigenous Yorks, and leave silver in the form of crisp 20 and 50 pound notes.
Even the ghosts stories here date back to the Romans – an entire platoon of the legion marching below ground level off to do battle with the ephemeral Celts hiding behind equally vanished mighty oaks.
